The Formula To Replacing Jamaal Charles

Seems like they’re two different defenses, and paper-thin on either one.

Anyway, you and I pretty much see the scrap the same. I’m a LITTLE slower to just say RAC is WRONG, but I know what I like and I don’t like how he’s been playing his front 5. It surprises me, because there were some stretches there, in New England, where it was all about a disrespectful front 5. Clog everything up between the hashes and let your smart, veteran ILBs freelance (and play so fast MENTALLY, everybody thinks Seau and Bruschi are as frisky as rookies).

I LIKED that Houston looked like a real-deal rush OLB, and I wanted to see that all day long, with the zone drop a changeup that can work very well after your rush OLB identity put the fear of God into the opposing QB and BC. Houston should be defending the TE by forcing the TE to help the RT. He should be PHYSICAL with the TE at the line, and line up wide enough to force the TE to give help. Go all-out for the outside move from WIDE. Seems like the only times Houston’s really attacking up the field is as a 4-3 DE in the dime front. Just when you want to unleash the guy, you’re putting him head-up in a 3-point stance against a much bigger RT.

I just don’t get it. But I get you, Loco.

Agree on Bailey, so far. When he’s trying to be 2-gapper in THIS league, he seems to spend a lot of time on his knees at the feet of a much bigger offensive guard. He might be a fun Darren Mickell kind of DE, who can just get push and slam the door in front of the blitzer from the opposite edge (slamming the door for Neil Smith for a few seasons, IIRC). Or see if he can do a Neil Smith imitation and get a vertical push against the right end of the O-Line.

Man … Romeo has no concept of how to design a 3-4 as complicated, creative and diverse as Dick Lambeau’s Fire Zone Blitz. And no idea how to continually make adjustments/play calls from series to series (or maybe even from snap to snap) as Lambeau does. And, apparently, no clue as to how to make adjustments for even the 2nd half. Its the same basic scheme and play calls all game long from beginning to end against everybody.

The only thing he did differently last season from this season was blitzing Berry and Arenas quite a bit. He won’t even blitz Arenas now, nor any S’ty for that matter. Romeo’s a dinosaur for today’s NFL 3-4 D play. He won’t learn nor make the adjustments necessary to shut down these passing driven offenses, and ZBS hybrid O-lines that let RB’s attack the flanks more and more.

Everybody else is running a hybrid 3-4, or a 1-gap penetrating 3-4, to shut down these QB’s, ZBS OL’s, and flanking stretch plays by attacking – as you point out. This bend but don’t break crap is a thing of the past for all … except for Romeo. (sigh)

Run blitzing, if its executed well to beautifully, can not only blow up the BC in the backfield, it also can nail the QB in the 3-step-drop, or before he can get to his 5-step, as well. That’s what Romeo should’ve been doing! Or the bum rush as you say … whatever!

Denver using the 3-man option (with both their starting RB’s going down in the first half at that!!!) rushing for 264 yards (or whatever it was … 246?) on 55 rushes, while only throwing it 6 times, and completing one of those for a 56 yard TD, is absolutely HUMILIATING!!! EMBARRASSING!!! DISGUSTING! And Crennel is absolutely INCOMPETENT!!! for letting it happen! He made absolutely no adjustments of any kind during the entire game. I’m done with Crennel after these last two humiliating defeats. And I’m done with Haley, Muir and the rest of the lot. What’s transpired this season is ridiculous, and wreaks of incompetence from all involved. This isn’t their first season anymore, for God’s sakes!

I know I don’t know nuthin. But I think I can see a team that’s not prepared to play physically and mentally; inspired and pumped to play emotionally; has no offensive game plan; a defense with no game plan, and that’s not allowed to play with any kind of aggression; and one that has no team identity … when it slaps me in the face. And don’t even get me started on Pioli’s drafting, most of his scrub FA signings that are Pats’ cast-offs, and the way he has built this team in general, for the last 2-plus seasons now. Its disgusting.

That’s just my know nothing, and not so humble opinion and feelings now.

With the exception of the Manningless Colts game, once we’ve started getting beat, it’s turned into a full-blown ass-whooping pretty quickly.

In MY opinion, great halftime adjustments just tell me that you got yourself in trouble in the 1st half, because you were failing to adjust on the fly. It tells me YOU need 12 minutes uninterrupted to dial up something different on D.

Same for Offense. The best coaching staffs are out-adjusting the opposition on a play-by-play basis AND with TWELVE WHOLE MINUTES to get DEVIOUS with, they come out roaring to start the 3rd quarter TOO.

It might just be trying to work new people into the system. KC is still definitely a team-in-transition to some (hopefully good) identity. It DOES take time for a lot of players to get to the point where you make tweaks and add wrinkles very quickly. But you have to have the basic scheme and basic themes down to a ‘T’ and have a general understanding of what your teammates are giving you to work with.

KC’s nickel and dime packages were widely different. Almost an entirely new crew. The 3-down players had to basically learn two different defenses, at least to MY eye. While they’ve been featuring more and more of the starting 3 DL in the last couple weeks, this doesn’t seem to have given much added consistency/coherence. I do think sticking to the starting 3 DLs is long-term what I’d like to see. Let the nickel mean you swapped out a LB for a DB.

Steve Mariucci just showed some clips from the Denver game, showing how Tebow worked his magic against the KC front 5. Nice clips, but the gorilla in the room, to ME, was all the defensive backs so far down the field, they were out of the play. They’d’ve had more hats in tight just by doubling outside at the line. Worried about the RB getting out in the pattern? Heck, with 7 guys crashing the line, the nearest guy should just DECK HIM, with or without the ball.

They should’ve forced Denver into something else after their 1st first down. Heck, after their first lame-looking running play for more than 2 friggini’ yards. Should’ve forced Tebow to throw and even THEN kept bringing it. There’s absolutely no evidence that he’d be able to throw darts consistently under NFL-caliber pressure. But RAC doesn’t BRING NFL-caliber pressure.

And I, for one, have been wanting KC to just stick with Battle and McClain in the backfield for long stretches. So don’t get me TOTALLY wrong. :o) But I think Jones’s average gives us a true measure of just how well things are generally being blocked-up. So, while I defend Thomas Jones on general principles, I also agree that this offense looks to be a little more productive with Battle.

But not having seen them just stick with Battle all the way, I don’t know exactly why they’re not doing it. Could be Battle is more consistent when given a couple downs to catch a blow. Could just as easily be that seams open just a bit wider because the opposition is expecting pass, more, because Jones just got wrapped up at the line by a horde of penetrating defenders on the play before.

I remember all these same things being said about Jamaal versus Thomas, and seeing Jamaal have a TERRIBLE game against the Ravens when KC DID feed him the ball in the 1st half of that playoff game. I got JUST what I wanted and it wasn’t very pretty. Made me feel like those trash plays to Jones were maybe a multitude of disasters that did NOT happen. It’s really tough for me to tell, even though it’s easy for all of us to point to a hole that Jamaal accelerates through and Jones can’t quite get to. I remember Emmitt looking TERRIBLE in Arizona, because their windows were so narrow and so short-lived in front of him. He got the boot for a younger, flashier guy, but he’d’ve been good enough to be a very durable, reliable back for them, if they had had a better team.

I’m really liking Battle’s burst to the hole and his “for good or ill, this is as close to a hole as I’m gonna get” decisiveness. I heard Haley telling him to do MORE of that “One cut and GO” stuff. But one of my favorite things in Battle’s game (although it’s an injury risk to the player) is he’ll spin off the initial hit and, facing backwards, he’ll drive his legs on the way to the turf, and pick up two or three yards at the end of every run, just by falling a really long distance forward. Reminds me of Terrell Davis, when the Broncos were well-defended and he’d turn nothing into two yards, like Emmitt used to do when the Cowboys were perfectly defended (with the obvious edge to the O-Line).

link

So using sacks when the sacks aren’t there is also legit.

Still, you can still see that there isn’t the complementary pressure from the other side. The biggest factor may be that the O-Lines KC’s faced this year weren’t generally as pathetic as those they face last season from the NFC Worst. Cassel had JUST enough time against Seattle to get the pass off against the backside pressure. The D-Line more than held its own against Seattle and St. Louis. And San Francisco’s talented, but raw O-Line got schooled by the KC fronts.

To a great extent, I think Hali’s numbers are as much a product of the opposing O-Lines and the mobility of opposing QBs. I don’t, nor have I ever, thought he was end-all and be-all. But definitely a legit part of a championship-caliber defense. He can notch those sacks against the BEST QBs in the league, with just one or two other guys who can slam the door from the other side. I think Justin Houston can become that guy, and I can only scratch my head that they aren’t featuring the 5-man rush a LOT more. Forget about Houston covering 30 yards down the field, running full speed with his back to the QB. Let whoever draws the RB chip block just make a point of running the RB over. Little hindrance to the QB and little threat from his back.

It’s more important, if your goal is to protect the secondary, that you cut down the time the pattern has to expand on you. Every second the QB has the ball, your guys are getting stretched thinner and thinner – the ONE thing you don’t have the TALENT to overcome.