Ben Roethlisberger hands off on first down. The Broncos don’t bother taking a second to consider.
Blitz!
Jake Plummer fakes the handoff and rolls out on second down. The Pittsburgh Steelers figure this might be coming and know what to do.
Blitz!
If it’s third down during the AFC championship game today and the yardage suggests the play should be a pass, it doesn’t matter which quarterback has the ball.
Blitz! Blitz! Blitz!
Cue the 1975 classic by Sweet. Come Sunday afternoon, the Broncos and Steelers figure to convert Invesco Field at Mile High into a “Ballroom Blitz.”
The Steelers blitzed on an NFL-high 287 pass attempts during the regular season. Anybody who watched Indianapolis star quarterback Peyton Manning get regularly knocked on his backside last Sunday knows the Steelers haven’t exactly backed off into a prevent defense for the playoffs.
Just because Plummer, the Broncos quarterback, is considerably more elusive than the statuesque Manning doesn’t mean the Steelers will yank Troy Polamalu by his hair and ask him to play safety first.
“A mobile quarterback is not going to change your scheme at all, especially with the speed that they have on defense,” Broncos coach Mike Shanahan said. “Jake is not going to be able to outrun those guys just because they are so well- coached and play so hard.”
Meanwhile, the Broncos defense blitzed on 246 opposing pass attempts, second only to Pittsburgh. New England quarterback Tom Brady can attest the Broncos defense didn’t suddenly form a soft shell for the playoffs.
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CRANKING THE HEAT
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“If they attacked Tom Brady, you know they’re going to attack Ben Roethlisberger,” said former quarterback Phil Simms, who will serve as the CBS color commentator for the AFC championship game.
A game of this magnitude – winner advances to the Super Bowl – is sure to be overanalyzed and dissected down to the long snappers. Perhaps no factor will be more significant to the outcome, however, than how each team handles the blitz.
They may attack from contrasting formations, blitz from different positions and come from divergent backgrounds. But at their respective defensive roots, the Bill Cowher-coached Steelers and Shanahan-coached Broncos have much in common.
Both believe in applying pressure.
“When we blitz, we won’t uncover the middle of the field,” Cowher said. “We don’t bring as many as Denver will at times.”
The Cowher theory of blitz the quarterback or get blitzed on the scoreboard is nothing new. Since becoming the Steelers’ head coach in 1992, his teams have been known for their ferocious defense and controlled, tilting-toward-conservative offense.
For Shanahan, the in-your-face style of defense is a relatively new concept.
“We’ve never blitzed this much, I’ll tell you that,” said Trevor Pryce, the Broncos’ defensive lineman whose career dates to 1997, the first of Denver’s back-to-back Super Bowl-championship seasons. “At no point did we ever just bring it constantly like this year. I’ve never seen anything like it. There was a point when we didn’t blitz. And that’s when everybody had 10 sacks or whatever. And now because we do blitz so much, everybody has to buy into that scheme. We’ve all bought into it, and look where it’s gotten us.”
In 2003, the season Pryce was alluding to, three Broncos defensive linemen – Bertrand Berry, Reggie Hayward and Pryce – combined for 28 1/2 sacks. This year, the Broncos’ leading sackers were Ebenezer Ekuban, John Lynch and Pryce with four each. And Lynch is a safety.
Blitzes often are counterproductive to a defensive linemen’s sack totals.
“Defensive line? We get to hold guys up so the safeties can run in,” Pryce said. “That’s kind of the way the blitz works. Offensive linemen know they have to secure the guy in front of them, first. So all the defensive linemen are secured first and then let the running backs worry about the dude coming in 300 mph.”
The need for speed
They might as well refer to 2003 as the Year B.C. – Before Champ. Once the Broncos acquired cornerback Champ Bailey and the bone-jarring Lynch to solidify their secondary while also adding athletic rookie linebacker D.J. Williams, they began increasing their number of blitzes last season. When the Broncos further bolstered their defensive speed this year by drafting rookie speedsters Darrent Williams and Domonique Foxworth for their secondary and re-signing veteran Ian Gold for their already stout, Al Wilson-led linebacker corps, no offensive hold could bar the Broncos from blitzing.
Among all the necessities for consistently executing the blitz, none may be greater than having cornerbacks and linebackers who can cover receivers or backs one-on-one, and tackle a full-speed ball carrier who has broken beyond the blitz.
“Tackling’s the key,” Broncos defensive coordinator Larry Coyer said. “Yes, sir, we have (applied more pressure this year). We’ve been comfortable. Yes, we have. They’re very comfortable with that approach and we weren’t always comfortable with that approach.”
Greater overall speed and toughness are reasons the Broncos turned up the blitz. Shanahan’s adjustment in defensive philosophy is another. Although his expertise lies on offense, Shanahan became increasingly frustrated the previous three years by his defense’s inability to produce turnovers.
All those years of running an offense told Shanahan the best way to get more turnovers was to apply more heat on the quarterback. Although the Broncos finished 31st in sacks this year, their increased pressure was demonstrated through the 41 turnovers they have caused in 17 games, including five last week against New England. Denver forced only 21 turnovers in 17 games each of the previous two seasons.
“For Denver, a lot of times they blitz because Mike Shanahan is the offensive coach out there with Gary Kubiak and he always says, ‘Here’s what I hate to see,”‘ Simms said.
The Broncos’ defensive base is four down linemen and three linebackers, or the 4-3. But rarely do they stick with their base. On any particular play – virtually every play, for that matter – the Broncos will bring in a new look. They stay pretty consistent with the four down linemen, but behind them, the Broncos will employ anywhere from three linebackers to just Wilson in the middle, and four defensive backs to six.
The linebackers don’t blitz much, but their safeties, Lynch and Nick Ferguson, come often. Occasionally, Coyer will send Gold in on a blitz from the weakside linebacker spot or Williams in from the corner.
By play’s end, the Broncos’ defense hopes to create the look of having not 11, but 12 or 13 men on the field.
“Absolutely, we blitz more than any team I’ve been on in my career,” said Lynch, who spent his first 11 seasons with the defensive-oriented Tampa Bay Buccaneers. “In particular the all-out blitz. Not many teams have the chutzpah to do it. It takes a lot of that because you’re leaving it out there.”
Blitz blunts the run
What the stats don’t show is how often a team blitzes against the run. Although Pryce and defensive tackles Gerard Warren and Michael Myers deserve most of the credit, the Broncos did not finish second against the run by front line alone.
“A lot of teams are blitzing to try to blow up our run, so we’re going to have some chances in the passing game to try to make some plays,” Steelers receiver Hines Ward said. “But we can’t shy away from what we do. We’ve got to try to run the ball because that’s what we do, that’s our identity.”
The Broncos also employ an offense that runs first, mixes in a pass, and runs again. For this game, the Broncos’ offense will be contending with a 3-4 formation – three down linemen and four linebackers – that allows for a greater variety of blitz packages.
From those four Steeler linebackers, at least one will blitz, and usually two. That the blitzes can come from any one of the four backers is what creates confusion for the quarterback. During the regular season, outside linebackers Joey Porter and Clark Haggans, both from Colorado State, combined for 19 1/2 sacks. But it was inside linebacker James Farrior who had 2 1/2 sacks against Manning in the second-round playoff game last week.
Polamalu the “best ever”
Then there’s Polamalu, who plays with such reckless abandon he makes Cowboys Pro Bowl safety Roy Williams seem passive by comparison. Primarily, the Steelers will blitz out of a cover one scheme, where the corners will play man, safety Chris Hope will play a one-man deep zone and Polamalu can go to wherever his instincts lead him.
“This kid Polamalu, and you can print this, he’s the best football player I’ve ever seen,” Pryce said. “There’s something very strange about him that I can’t put a finger on. They call him a Ninja because he just pops out of nowhere and pops you. He’s reckless. He does not care. And that comes from his size, too. He has an advantage being 5-10. When you’re short and strong, you have an advantage, because those 6-5 offensive linemen can’t get a hold of anything to block when you’re 5-10.”
Cowher is a former linebacker and special-teams kamikaze who coaches what he knows. For years, the Steelers have featured a fast, aggressive, spine-rattling defense. Critics can say what they will about Cowher failing to win the Big One, but no one can deny that six conference championship games in the past 12 seasons is anything but impressive.
The problem each team will confront Sunday is there are no secrets. If the Broncos are going to deliver Cowher’s fifth conference championship defeat, they must neutralize the Steeler blitz far better than Manning’s protectors did.
“I thought Indianapolis had the right scheme for the blitz, they just messed up in protection,” said Bubby Brister, who played quarterback for both Cowher and Shanahan. “They had the three-on-three, four-on-four, but there just seemed to be confusion on which guy to take. But Kubiak and Shanahan are the best at attacking the blitz. They’ll use five receivers and spread the field out. They’ll have the mindset of, ‘Come on and get me some. Bring it on.”‘
Roethlisberger likely will have similar thoughts about the Broncos’ defense. He knows whether he’s handing off or dropping back, he’s likely to encounter variations of the same defensive scheme: Blitz. Blitz. The Broncos’ Blitz.
Staff writer Mike Klis can be reached at 303-820-5440 or mklis@denverpost.com.
