O line
 

Im a bit worried about the line. Did dallas have a good D-line or is ours bad. Six sacks is unaceptable. Glover manhandled Rabach. Anybody else notice this?

Re: O line
 

wow, did glover put a number on Rabach?

Parcells coach team are good, I mean, I'm not surprised they got to us, 5 plus sacks is disturbing though

Re: O line
 

5 sacks is never a good thing, but yes, Dallas does have a great d-line and they are very deep and physical.

I think they're going to give a lot of offensive lines trouble this year.

Re: O line
 

I'm happy with Samuels though - a great last ditch effort to keep Ware from getting to Brunell on the 70yd TD pass. And of course, with Jansen playing through injury. R. Thomas is always solid, but even he got called for a false start the other night (can't remember if Thomas has ever been offsides as a redskin before that time).

The guy who really needs to step it up is Dockery.

Re: O line
 

I saw Rabach get absolutely blown up on a few occasions where it looked like he was going to get pushed back into Brunell before he even finished dropping back.

I haven't gone back and watched the game yet again though, so I can't commment on Dockery.

Seemed like a lot of the pressure came on blitzes, but then again they did manage to bring heat with just their front line, and that was a concern.

I agree, Samuels did a great job, he's back in a big way.

Re: O line
 

I was a little concerned about or protection as well. Dallas rotated their D line the entire game which had to help with temps at around 95 degrees.

Re: O line
 

I'm sure Bugel hasn't slept since

Re: O line
 

Honestly I felt like most of their pressure came on LB stunts and safety blitzes. They did get 2.5 sack from their line (Ellis-1, Canty-1, Spears-.5) but the rest came from LBs. I know on at least two that they were coverage sacks where brunell had no where to throw the ball and just took the sack. Rabach got manhandled a little but Glover was crazy quick off the snap a bunch of times and that is real difficult to block when you're snapping and getting blown up at the same time. All in all I felt like with the quality of their front 7 and the amount of gimmicks used to pressure the QB they held up good enough. I was more concerned with out inability to pressure Bledsoe even a little bit with our front 4. We need Arrington back 100% to take some pressure of those front 4.

Re: O line
 

I said it before if you look at the game it is not the abilities of our offense poor performance more than it was penalties that killed drives and the Cowboys just got after us and put us in a lot of 3rd and longs with sacks just by looking at the play-by-play. We would have been in position on nearly every possesion to convert 3rd and short if it was not for several holding penalties and sacks. If we can cut those out the personnel are capable to move us down the field to include Brunell. The O line did play a major part in us not sustaining drives in this game rather than the QB or playcalling. Not to mention several moves/scrambles by Brunell to avoid having 10 sacks and making big plays. Seeing the team overcome and pick up the rush to make the key plays does show promise and if we continue to get better to make plays during the blitz teams will cut back on them, but right now that is what teams are going to do to stop us.

Re: O line
 

To be honest, I thought on quite a few of Brunells sacks, that he had adequate time. I counted once that he had 6 seconds, which lets face it, is a lightyear of time in the NFL. Now while hte line didnt play great, I dont think they played " 6 sacks " bad. Ya know?

Re: O line
 

[QUOTE=Gmanc711]To be honest, I thought on quite a few of Brunells sacks, that he had adequate time. I counted once that he had 6 seconds, which lets face it, is a lightyear of time in the NFL. Now while hte line didnt play great, I dont think they played " 6 sacks " bad. Ya know?[/QUOTE]

You have to factor in the coverage on some of sacks those too.

How do we stop the Blitzes?
 

ultimately, blitzing is what really has made our offense "dink and dunk".

Brunell is much more ball conscious and ends up checking down quick or scrambling to beat the rush. I think Ramsey literally doesn't care about the rush and is just dying to throw it downfield, hence the stigma of holding it too long and the absolute laser beams he throws when they do come out.

regardless, i think it's safe to say the modern day NFL blitz is what's hardest for Joe Gibbs to deal with this time around and what ran Spurrier out of town.

How do we stop it? Gibbs already tried 'max protect' and it didn't work, is it really a personnel issue (as glanced upon in the O Line thread), is our line really not as good as we say they are? our TE's not good at blocking? i don't think Clinton Portis could block one iota better at his current size.

is a true possession receiver a possible cure? i thought Cooley was going to play that role, but he was barely in Brunell's sights in Dallas. Cooley can't run those quick inside slants anyway and our WRs are too small for it. (this was one thing Coles was very good for).

if we're going to take more shots at Moss and Patten downfield, what can we do to get the QB some time? while i appreciate the ability, Brunell's scrambling isn't what it used to be and he really shouldn't have to do it or wait until fourth quarter to wait for the defense to play lazy.

Re: O line
 

oops i just started a Blitz thread, but this one really took off. sorry, Merge away

Re: O line
 

[QUOTE=Mattyk72]You have to factor in the coverage on some of sacks those too.[/QUOTE]

Yeah, to me it looked like there was really no one open. One time they pointed that out actually. However, on a full-on blitz then someone must have been left open right? Or at the least in one-on-one coverage.

Re: O line
 

[QUOTE=Mattyk72]You have to factor in the coverage on some of sacks those too.[/QUOTE]

Oh absolutley. It wasent a knock on Brunell as much as it was a defending of the oline.

Re: O line
 

[QUOTE=TAFKAS]Yeah, to me it looked like there was really no one open. One time they pointed that out actually. However, on a full-on blitz then someone must have been left open right? Or at the least in one-on-one coverage.[/QUOTE]

well there's only 11 on their side too right?

are Santana and Patten not fast enough to break single coverage? or is Brunell waiting till they're TOO open to throw the ball to them and not check down? the eternal question.

if all those Blitzes were done by the LBs, why wasn't Cooley getting more balls in the middle instead of Portis in the flat?

and can we please lose the WR screen? or at least keep it to once a game.

Re: O line
 

I think Patten has been a bit of a disappointment so far. I haven't really seen him get separation the way he did in the preseason.

And it seemed like Brunell was looking to Robert Royal before he thought of Cooley.

Re: O line
 

I think Patten will be ok.

Brunell underthrew him once and another time had one tipped that was headed his way.

Re: O line
 

[QUOTE=TAFKAS]I think Patten has been a bit of a disappointment so far. I haven't really seen him get separation the way he did in the preseason.

And it seemed like Brunell was looking to Robert Royal before he thought of Cooley.[/QUOTE]
Interesting observation about Royal. I have two theories:

1) The Dallas coaching staff got tired of reading about Cooley as a "secret weapon", and clamped down. Every writer in the league has Cooley pegged as the only big receiving threat on the team. While I expect him to do well this year, it will be difficult if he is considered the top receving threat on the team. Passes to Royal and the WRs will alleviate that.

2) Brunell had been practicing will the second team in practice until this week. He's used to throwing to Royal, who sees snaps with that unit. I remember a few years ago when (I think) Jeff George came in in relief of Johnson. They brought in 3rd WR Thrash to the lineup as well, and Thrash caught like 8 balls. George knew what Thrash was going to do, because they'd worked together. Same thing here.

Re: O line
 

Remember that Cooley's production jumped when Ramsey took over, I think it's only a matter of time before Brunell gets in sync with Cooley.

Re: O line
 

[QUOTE=Mattyk72]Remember that Cooley's production jumped when Ramsey took over, I think it's only a matter of time before Brunell gets in sync with Cooley.[/QUOTE]

oi, don't remind us.
speaking of, we use two TE/H-Back sets all the time. doesn't Royal line up on the other side where Lefty Brunell sees him more?

Re: O line
 

Cooley may have spent more time blocking on Monday due to all the blitzing, something else to keep in mind.

Re: How do we stop the Blitzes?
 

[QUOTE=illdefined]How do we stop it? Gibbs already tried 'max protect' and it didn't work, is it really a personnel issue (as glanced upon in the O Line thread), is our line really not as good as we say they are? our TE's not good at blocking? [/QUOTE]
I think the only true way to stop it is to make teams pay for it. I love crazy blitzing. I loved watching our guys blitz insanely last year. I'd love to watch us blitz every play this year and get 20 sacks a game but the problem with it is that a team only has to beat it 2 or 3 times and the game is over. It is a huge risk to blitz and that is why not every team just goes blitz crazy. They don't have the secondary to mitigate the risk or they don't have the personnell that can get the QB fast enough to not leave the secondary hanging. And that is how you stop the blitzing. You show teams you can beat it. You don't have to beat it a lot. Just enough to make teams think twice about it. Let's be honest if we lined and blitzed 3 guys every play we'd dominate 98% of the game but on those 3 or 4 other plays we'd get beat bad and that would be points. So beat the blitz a couple times and all of a sudden it will slow down. We seem to forget that when Turner was here we had a decent offense because they'd go donwfield on blitzes and hit a couple. Next thing you know teams weren't blitzing so much adn Davis became a running force. The checking down has got to stop or at least the checking down needs be designed well enough to get decent yardage otherwise thats exactly what they want. If they don't get a sack they'll take an incompletion or a two yard dump-off.

Re: How do we stop the Blitzes?
 

[QUOTE=FRPLG]I think the only true way to stop it is to make teams pay for it. I love crazy blitzing. I loved watching our guys blitz insanely last year. I'd love to watch us blitz every play this year and get 20 sacks a game but the problem with it is that a team only has to beat it 2 or 3 times and the game is over. It is a huge risk to blitz and that is why not every team just goes blitz crazy. They don't have the secondary to mitigate the risk or they don't have the personnell that can get the QB fast enough to not leave the secondary hanging. And that is how you stop the blitzing. You show teams you can beat it. You don't have to beat it a lot. Just enough to make teams think twice about it. Let's be honest if we lined and blitzed 3 guys every play we'd dominate 98% of the game but on those 3 or 4 other plays we'd get beat bad and that would be points. So beat the blitz a couple times and all of a sudden it will slow down. We seem to forget that when Turner was here we had a decent offense because they'd go donwfield on blitzes and hit a couple. Next thing you know teams weren't blitzing so much adn Davis became a running force. The checking down has got to stop or at least the checking down needs be designed well enough to get decent yardage otherwise thats exactly what they want. If they don't get a sack they'll take an incompletion or a two yard dump-off.[/QUOTE]


Exactly, I think our checkdowns and blitz receiver audibles are predictable. With our speedy receivers we should be able to get away with slants on the blitz. The other thing is if a team is going to overpursue you have to have dynamic RB screens that rapidly develop to counter this. This is how NE beats the blitz, with quality slants and RB screens.

Re: How do we stop the Blitzes?
 

[QUOTE=FRPLG]The checking down has got to stop or at least the checking down needs be designed well enough to get decent yardage otherwise thats exactly what they want. If they don't get a sack they'll take an incompletion or a two yard dump-off.[/QUOTE]

no kidding, we need to stop hitting the flats. have Cooley and Royal chip the blitzer and get upfield. keeping them in just to block doesn't slow the blitz one bit.

Samuels and Jansen aren't fast enough against the NFL's new faster LBs to properly set up those WR screens either. it just keeps the box nice and packed anyway.

the way to attack the Skins is to blitz, it's in the league newsletter. Moss and Patten just have to burn their single converage and more importantly, *Brunell has to THROW it to them*. even if they look covered, OVERTHROW it to avoid the DB and see how fast these guys really are, don't throw it low and at their knees for the comeback because you think it's "safe" !!!!! :banghead:

Re: O line
 

Yeah it is all about making teams NOT BLITZ anymore. If they bring the heat you have to beat it enough to make them stop. You simply can't block 6 or 7 guys coming at you from 7 different angles consistently or much at all really. Beat it and teams start respecting your entire offense which brings them into a more passive mode. Once there then you're talking about executing well designed plays that get multiple WR open both at the intermediate level and downfield. Until you beat it then you can forget about letting a play develop. You think teams blitz the heck out of the Colts? No they don't usualy and thats because they'd get torched. Manning might eat some turf but they'd score a lot. A lot more.

Re: How do we stop the Blitzes?
 

[QUOTE=illdefined]the way to attack the Skins is to blitz, it's in the league newsletter. Moss and Patten just have to burn their single converage and more importantly, *Brunell has to THROW it to them*. even if they look covered, OVERTHROW it to avoid the DB and see how fast these guys really are, don't throw it low and at their knees for the comeback because you think it's "safe" !!!!! :banghead:[/QUOTE]
Oh my gosh this is what I have been saying since the middle of the first quarter against the Bears. NO SECONDARY in the has the speed to cover both Patten and Moss on flys and posts without two Safeties in ladder coverage. Hell Moss gets 5 or 6 yards of sepeartion just about any time he runs a fly one on one. Line those two midgets up on opposite sides of the field and have them run like forrest gump. The safety then has to decide which to provide ladder coverage on and the other should have one on one. THROW IT 30 yards past him and let him run under it. At least if it is too long it doesn't get picked. If they bring two safeties back to cover the flys then start dumping off to Cooley, Portis and Royal and let them get 9 or 10 YAC. I sat in the high ups at the Bears game and had a good view of the whole field. I am tellings you this would have worked. I watched Moss just run by guys every time he was running a lateral route. It was ridiculous.

Re: O line
 

we need to stop the blitz because they run-blitz in a way to attack the running lanes on their way to the QB. the result is what we saw in Dallas. things like RB draws don't work, and Gibbs doesn't seem to like the Toss (though i did see a direct snap to an RB in there..)

Re: O line
 

[QUOTE=illdefined]we need to stop the blitz because they run-blitz in a way to attack the running lanes on their way to the QB. the result is what we saw in Dallas. things like RB draws don't work, and Gibbs doesn't seem to like the Toss (though i did see a direct snap to an RB in there..)[/QUOTE]
Yeah what happened to our stretch plays and the zone blocking? We seem to have reverted in the running game a little.

Re: O line
 

I mentioned more than once in the second and third quarters that the 'Boys wouldn't respect us until we threw deep. Even though I had defended Gibbs' decision up to that point, I was starting to wonder myself whether he was gratifying his own pride by keeping Brunell in there. I'm glad I was wrong. It definitely seemed like there were a lot of Cowboys playing up in the box to blitz and snuff out our runs. It was kind of funny how one of the commentators noted how calm Gibbs was in the 3rd or 4th quarter.

Re: O line
 

Good post and conversation, it seems we can all agree that with those two bombs and that we have some true playmakers that can beat the deep coverage. We need to beat that blitz and challenge some of those safeties like earlier posted with Patten and Moss. I think those two plays will open and give the Offense alot of confidence to go deep more often. I think Dallas did a good job of game planning for blitzes with the screens and quick passes which showed in that 1st drive. They new we were coming, but the Skins countered and cut back on the blitzes as heavily and played solid D with occassional blitzes to keep them off beat alittle. Our O line is solid, but taking on a team that blitzed as much as the Cowboys you wear down and miss some blitzes. Key is make a few teams pay beating them with the deep ball and once Gibbs gets adjusted and figures out which plays he has in his arsenal will do just that. Throwing it away to avoid the blitz is not effective way to get Defenses from stop blitzing and urges them to continue if you throw it away to kill your drives.

Re: How do we stop the Blitzes?
 

[QUOTE=FRPLG]Oh my gosh this is what I have been saying since the middle of the first quarter against the Bears. NO SECONDARY in the has the speed to cover both Patten and Moss on flys and posts without two Safeties in ladder coverage. Hell Moss gets 5 or 6 yards of sepeartion just about any time he runs a fly one on one. Line those two midgets up on opposite sides of the field and have them run like forrest gump. The safety then has to decide which to provide ladder coverage on and the other should have one on one. THROW IT 30 yards past him and let him run under it. At least if it is too long it doesn't get picked. If they bring two safeties back to cover the flys then start dumping off to Cooley, Portis and Royal and let them get 9 or 10 YAC. I sat in the high ups at the Bears game and had a good view of the whole field. I am tellings you this would have worked. I watched Moss just run by guys every time he was running a lateral route. It was ridiculous.[/QUOTE]


Absolutly! I would come out against Seatle and start firing downfield immediatly, 3 long passes to either sideline, but I would couple that with Cooley down the center of the field, he will beat the LB's which will leave 1 on 1 coverage for someone all of the time, and only leave 7 men in the box on the defensive side, but these things are not a QB problem or a player problem they are a scheme problem which is a Gibbs problem.

Once a team figures out they will have man to man coverage everyplay against WR's with the kind of speed we have they will have to pull back and play a more conservative pass coverage, which will open things up for Portis.

The concern I do have is this, everytime we think Gibbs is going to open things up and turn the corner with a game plan that seems pretty obvious to most of us, he goes right back into his shell and stagnates the offense, almost as if he can't wait to just play conservative.

Re: How do we stop the Blitzes?
 

[QUOTE=FRPLG] THROW IT 30 yards past him and let him run under it. At least if it is too long it doesn't get picked. If they bring two safeties back to cover the flys then start dumping off to Cooley, Portis and Royal and let them get 9 or 10 YAC. I sat in the high ups at the Bears game and had a good view of the whole field. I am tellings you this would have worked. I watched Moss just run by guys every time he was running a lateral route. It was ridiculous.[/QUOTE]

glad you saw it, i can't imagine CBs keeping up with those two all game. Brunell underthrows it low and outside to keep the db from getting at it but the curls and comebacks just have to stop, whether gameplanned or not. that also keeps LBs and DBs in the box for the pickoff and just cause more problems for Portis!

Re: O line
 

[QUOTE=jermus22]I mentioned more than once in the second and third quarters that the 'Boys wouldn't respect us until we threw deep. Even though I had defended Gibbs' decision up to that point, I was starting to wonder myself whether he was gratifying his own pride by keeping Brunell in there. I'm glad I was wrong. It definitely seemed like there were a lot of Cowboys playing up in the box to blitz and snuff out our runs. It was kind of funny how one of the commentators noted how calm Gibbs was in the 3rd or 4th quarter.[/QUOTE]

i really hope you're not suggesting Gibbs was intentionally calling that game to be a 56 minute "play action pass". to throw short all game just to throw long at the end? *very* unlikely.

Re: O line
 

Naw, boss. Just glad he was cool about it and came through in the end. :laughing-

Re: How do we stop the Blitzes?
 

[QUOTE=offiss]The concern I do have is this, everytime we think Gibbs is going to open things up and turn the corner with a game plan that seems pretty obvious to most of us, he goes right back into his shell and stagnates the offense, almost as if he can't wait to just play conservative.[/QUOTE]

well ideally you want to, *when you have a LEAD*. its that LEAD we need to get first!

Re: O line
 

[QUOTE=jermus22]Naw, boss. Just glad he was cool about it and came through in the end. :laughing-[/QUOTE]

yeah it was great to see ol' Ice Face get so happy at the end! :coach:

Re: How do we stop the Blitzes?
 

[QUOTE=illdefined]well ideally you want to, *when you have a LEAD*. its that LEAD we need to get first![/QUOTE]


The problem is Gibbs calls a game as if we were up 21 points.


I don't think we will grab many leads if we don't start firing downfield, we have to back the defense up whether we complete them or not, we have to force them back, that is the only way we will get Portis going, and then that will allow Gibbs to mix his play calling and control the ball, it's kind of like a fighter, you have to knock someone out before others will respect your power, and we really haven't done that yet, monday night was a step in that direction, but teams aren't going to back off until we prove we can do it, and are willing to do it consistantly.

Re: How do we stop the Blitzes?
 

[QUOTE=offiss]The problem is Gibbs calls a game as if we were up 21 points.


I don't think we will grab many leads if we don't start firing downfield, we have to back the defense up whether we complete them or not, we have to force them back, that is the only way we will get Portis going, and then that will allow Gibbs to mix his play calling and control the ball, it's kind of like a fighter, you have to knock someone out before others will respect your power, and we really haven't done that yet, monday night was a step in that direction, but teams aren't going to back off until we prove we can do it, and are willing to do it consistantly.[/QUOTE]

agree 100%

Gibbs said he tried a handful of down the field throws before the 4th quarter, but it wasn't nearly enough to have the safeties back off. after monday night, i challenge Brunell to try and overthrow these guys once or twice a drive at least.

Re: How do we stop the Blitzes?
 

[QUOTE=illdefined]agree 100%

Gibbs said he tried a handful of down the field throws before the 4th quarter, but it wasn't nearly enough to have the safeties back off. after monday night, i challenge Brunell to try and overthrow these guys once or twice a drive at least.[/QUOTE]
It's not just trying them. They have to hit sometimes before a team will respect them. Now that we have hit a few it should back some people off a bit but we need to hit a few more in the next few games to cement it into the scout book. If we hit one or two of those a game(they don't need to go for TDs but just simply big gainers) then we'll be in good shape. I think play one against Seattle we go deep just so they know it's coming.