In life, some concepts defy all human rationale, yet are nevertheless so.
Concepts like more money brings bigger problems. When needing to hurry up, it helps to slow down. Ignorance is bliss. Redheads have more fun.
To those whose life is the Broncos, the 2006 season brings a doozy of a notion.
Less blitzing. More sacks.
How in the name of Lawrence Taylor is this supposed to work?
“The way it works is the more people you bring, the more the offense leaves in for protection,” Broncos defensive line coach Andre Patterson said, “and the more your (defensive backs) are left out there one-on-one. Go back to the Pittsburgh game.”
For the Broncos, it always goes back to the Pittsburgh game.
“We came with the max stuff,” Patterson said. “Well, they kept receivers in to block everybody. So they gave (Ben) Roethlisberger more time to throw the ball with Champ (Bailey) and the other DBs left to cover the whole field.”
To the surprise of their regular-season opponents, the Broncos were a blitz-happy defense last year. No team playing out of the 4-3 alignment blitzed more. For the most part, the Broncos’ aggressive, all-out approach was lauded. They went 13-3 during the regular season. In their first playoff victory in seven years, an all-out blitz harried New England’s megastar Tom Brady into a misguided throw that Bailey picked off and came within a pylon of taking from end zone to end zone.
Sure, there were concerns about the rambunctious attack, particularly that opposing quarterbacks weren’t always rushed and rarely dropped. The lack of sacks, however, was downplayed in the face of the Broncos’ overall success and their impressive plus-24 turnover margin that topped the NFL entering the Pittsburgh game.
Then came the Pittsburgh game. And a flaw was exposed.
“You can’t get to where you rely on the blitz,” Broncos defensive coordinator Larry Coyer said, because if you do and your opponent picks it up, you are out of luck. “Which is what happened in the Pittsburgh game,” he added. “They schemed our blitz, we couldn’t blitz and we couldn’t stand up.”
Which leads to the concept of less blitzing, more sacks. In the past 24 seasons, a linebacker has been the NFL’s sack leader only three times, none since Pat Swilling in 1991. The rest have been defensive linemen, predominantly at end.
What even the most ardent Sunday sofa observer may not realize is blitzes negate the front four’s ability to rush. When the blitz is on, a defensive lineman’s primary responsibility is to draw, hold or implode as many blockers as possible so the blitzing linebacker or defensive back can rush free.
In other words, blitzes require coordinated assignments that usually call for the defensive linemen to sacrifice.
“I’ve been in situations like that before,” said former defensive end/linebacker Bryce Paup, who led the NFL with 17 1/2 sacks for Buffalo in 1995. “What makes it tough for the front four is you know you’re doing your job, but people on the outside don’t know what your job is.”
“When you pick up a stat sheet at the end of the game,” Patterson said, “it doesn’t say that Michael Myers held up two linemen 15 times during the game so Al Wilson could get 10 tackles.”
The blitz is counterproductive to sacks in another way.
“When you’re blitzing, the ball is coming out quicker,” Broncos defensive tackle Gerard Warren said. “The quarterback in his mind is thinking, ‘Get rid of the ball, get rid of the ball.’ But anytime there’s a four-man rush, now he’s thinking about progressing with his reads because he would have more time.”
Perhaps the NFL’s best pure pass rusher is defensive end Dwight Freeney, who has averaged 12.8 sacks the past four seasons. Freeney plays for the Indianapolis Colts, who last year came on just 32 blitzes in pass situations – the least in the NFL and 214 fewer than the Broncos.
“I think there comes a point for any team where you have to say, ‘Here we are, you know what we’re doing, we know what you’re doing, who’s going to win?”‘ Broncos safety and frequent blitzer John Lynch said. “You can only do that if you have the ability, and I applaud the coaching staff for recognizing that.
“Some people might say, ‘Why didn’t you recognize that last year?’ Because what we were doing worked until the end. It was a good lesson for us, too, because if that’s all you rely on, eventually somebody might come up with an answer.”
Which brings up a potential backlash to the less blitz/more sacks concepts. (When it comes to second-guessing NFL strategies, there always is a backlash.) If blitzes created few sacks but more turnovers last season, could fewer blitzes mean fewer turnovers?
“I’d rather have the ball than a sack, any day,” Warren said.
The objective, it seems, is balance. There is evidence sacks are vital, as Seattle, which led the NFL with 50 last season, and Pittsburgh, which tied for third with 47, reached the Super Bowl.
The Seahawks didn’t blitz much last season, but when they did, they sacked the quarterback an NFL-best 14.6 percent of the time. Compare that to the Broncos, whose sack-to-blitz ratio was just 5.8 percent.
For 2006, the Broncos don’t necessarily want to blitz less, but liberate their front four. They want to give the likes of Warren, Corey Jackson, Kenard Lang and Elvis Dumervil the room to operate.
If the front four can apply the pressure by themselves, the element of surprise might return to the Broncos’ blitz packages.
“Now you don’t know if we’re bluffing or we’re coming,” Warren said. “If the quarterback comes out quick and we’re bluffing, it’ll be a pick. But if we’re bluffing and the quarterback takes his time and drops back, then the four guys up front got to get him.”
What a concept.
Staff writer Mike Klis can be reached at 303-820-5440 or mklis@denverpost.com.
