DMN Burnett Blog: Blitzing & Coverage (Fan62)
by Kevin Burnett
Question
Last year, other teams offenses seemed to know when and who was going to blitz. I thought the coaches schemes did very little to disguise the blitz.
Have you worked on that in OTA's or has there been any talk of changing the blitz up, for this year? I know you can't talk too much about it, but give a general answer. Everyone knew Roy Williams was coming a lot, so they picked him up easily. New people around - anyone that get pressure with the blitz, so that the other team will not know who's coming?
I doubt this, but have to ask anyway. Were other teams maybe picking up the call from the sidelines? Will the helmet radio maybe help this year?
Answer
In the NFL there are not many secret. About 75%of the time when your blitzing the other team knows it. With that being said teams don't know where guys are coming from. They also don't know the coverage. It is very common for a team to have the same blitz concept with 3-5 different coverage combinations. So yes teams will pick your blitz more times then not but, the qb still needs to know the coverage.
WHY? I'm pretty sure all of you know what a hot read is. A hot read is when the defense has more Blitzer's than the offense has blockers. When this happens the qb has to throw hot. Now here is where the qb has to be worth his salt. As a defense we may have shown a particular blitz with man coverage but, maybe vs. this particular team we decided to run a zone behind it. This goes against everything the offense was counting on, because odds are they haven't seen this blitz on tape. That's where our coaching staff comes into play. We (as every team) change our plays up weekly but, it's up to us as a defense to run them correctly. Like I said before every week we have about 30-45 defense not including adjustments so we change every play we run on a weekly basis.
Roy! When a safety blitz is called it's tough to hide. Qbs are taught to read the safeties because no matter what the defense does the safeties have to cover. So when there is only one safety in the middle of the field antennas go up and the offense checks the protection to accommodate. When a offense checks the protection this usually means the backs will be staying in to block. This works well with teams who use their rbs a lot in the passing game. Now here is where it can hurt you if you're not planning for the protection to be checked, everyone can get blocked and you have your corners on a island (very bad juju).
Very rarely do you get a free shot to the qb, teams are just too good. The object of a blitz may not always be to sack the qb or get a tackle for loss. It may be to make the qb throw quick/hot into coverage, or it maybe to get the offense to keep guys in then check out of the blitz defensively so they have people blocking air and we can double the wide outs.
Teams pick up on your calls that's why you have dummy calls and hand signals, but I do think the helmet radio will save some grief in 2min.
I was also not exact on what I wanted from the question of the day so I have to ask for a re-do, so everyone wins today. For the people who played e-mail me your topics.
Question
Last year, other teams offenses seemed to know when and who was going to blitz. I thought the coaches schemes did very little to disguise the blitz.
Have you worked on that in OTA's or has there been any talk of changing the blitz up, for this year? I know you can't talk too much about it, but give a general answer. Everyone knew Roy Williams was coming a lot, so they picked him up easily. New people around - anyone that get pressure with the blitz, so that the other team will not know who's coming?
I doubt this, but have to ask anyway. Were other teams maybe picking up the call from the sidelines? Will the helmet radio maybe help this year?
Answer
In the NFL there are not many secret. About 75%of the time when your blitzing the other team knows it. With that being said teams don't know where guys are coming from. They also don't know the coverage. It is very common for a team to have the same blitz concept with 3-5 different coverage combinations. So yes teams will pick your blitz more times then not but, the qb still needs to know the coverage.
WHY? I'm pretty sure all of you know what a hot read is. A hot read is when the defense has more Blitzer's than the offense has blockers. When this happens the qb has to throw hot. Now here is where the qb has to be worth his salt. As a defense we may have shown a particular blitz with man coverage but, maybe vs. this particular team we decided to run a zone behind it. This goes against everything the offense was counting on, because odds are they haven't seen this blitz on tape. That's where our coaching staff comes into play. We (as every team) change our plays up weekly but, it's up to us as a defense to run them correctly. Like I said before every week we have about 30-45 defense not including adjustments so we change every play we run on a weekly basis.
Roy! When a safety blitz is called it's tough to hide. Qbs are taught to read the safeties because no matter what the defense does the safeties have to cover. So when there is only one safety in the middle of the field antennas go up and the offense checks the protection to accommodate. When a offense checks the protection this usually means the backs will be staying in to block. This works well with teams who use their rbs a lot in the passing game. Now here is where it can hurt you if you're not planning for the protection to be checked, everyone can get blocked and you have your corners on a island (very bad juju).
Very rarely do you get a free shot to the qb, teams are just too good. The object of a blitz may not always be to sack the qb or get a tackle for loss. It may be to make the qb throw quick/hot into coverage, or it maybe to get the offense to keep guys in then check out of the blitz defensively so they have people blocking air and we can double the wide outs.
Teams pick up on your calls that's why you have dummy calls and hand signals, but I do think the helmet radio will save some grief in 2min.
I was also not exact on what I wanted from the question of the day so I have to ask for a re-do, so everyone wins today. For the people who played e-mail me your topics.
posted by The Gryphon at 8:26 AM
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