1) They are concentrating their rush up the middle to keep him from getting set and stepping up into the pocket.
That's when he's the best.
:
This is nothing new for defenses going against Drew over the years and it's how they have effectively defensed him.
2) Defenses are removing the quick release routes where Drew gets his 1st reads..
..they are rolling coverage to Witten and Key to stop the quick passes to the TE and flanker slants.
This makes Drew hold the ball longer as he goes thru his reads and result in allowing the defense to attack the pocket.
Those passes were working earlier in the year as our OL was playing better at pass protection and had less injuries, etc. and we had a healthy Julius Jones the defense had to respect out of the backfield.
Now..remove the healthy OL with Flo's injury, remove a healthy Julius Jones and dial in the defense doing everything it can to rush the middle and cover like crazy the short and intermediate passing routes and..
..that's why it's gotten to make Bledsoe look less effective.
This is the chessmatch we have been forced to play.
Al Johnson is not the best center in the NFl and he's got limits which have been documented. I don't think Dallas is as high on him as they would publically say, but b/w him and Guerode, he's the better answer.
The center controls the pass rush from the middle and he's just not dominating there. Fortunately, he's got LA and Rivera there next to him, but those two guys are helping out with the new OT's we have who are struggling.
So the center is the key here. If play doesn't improve from Johnson, I suspect Guerode might get his chances to play center in December.
Also, with the concentration of the passing defense on the short routes, because we lack speed at the WR positions, other than Terry Glenn..the defenses can choose to double cover him and take him away from Bledsoe on his progression reads and that makes it very hard for Bledsoe.
Add to this, we are often keeping our backs in to help with the defensive pressure, then the defense doesn't have to worry about that and it only adds to them using their LBers to either blitz or drop into short coverages to clog the short passing lanes.
This is Bledsoe's problem. But it's not strictly his problem. It's the whole offensive problem..not just him.
It's the whole way things have evolved over the last 3-4 games for us.
Teams have gotten lot's of film on us. They have seen Al Johnson can be overpowered in the middle and that the G's are helping the outside T's with their assignments in the passing game.
So an defensive coordinator would see that the middle is the place to go and the quickest route to upsetting Bledsoe's timing and stepping up into the pocket and causing indecision from the QB.
Drew isn't mobile, so that makes it even easier to play him.
We all knew this the day they signed him.
Troy Aikman had the same problems his last year's in Dallas. They would zone-blitz the heck out of the center of the line and he'd get beaten up with the rush or his accurracy faded as his progressions broke down.
Once Mark Stepnoski left the team as center, Aikman steadily regressed as did the offense.
Now, how do we change that..?
I suspect what they will have to start to do is to start rolling Bledsoe out of the pocket some on quick flare passes and move it some left and some right and keep the defense guessing where the passing attack pocket is going to setup.
This will put pressure on the OT's to contain their man to make this work, but it can be done. Also using the screen pass more with a healthy Julius Jones should get some good plays, too...with the defense trying to clog the middle so much.
Also, if the running game returns to form as it did vs. Detroit, then that goes a long way to opening up the quick slants and other weapons such as RB's out of the backfield downfield in pass patterns and playaction for Drew to have more time to throw.
I think Sean PAyton is going to have to recognize this and is going to need to recreate some matchups with what weapons we have to shake up defenses and help the offense out of this and shift things again to where we are dictating matchups more..as we were in the early season.
The return of Crayton would help alot, but failing that, getting Peerless Price on the field more in 3 WR sets to spread out the defense more on early downs instead of 2nd and 3rd and long would be a quick solution.
Being willing to move the backs out of the backfield on quick swing passes to force the Lbers to cover and not just sit on the inside passing routes and/or blitz from everywhere would also force the defense to man-up and take them out of their defensive plans.
Moving Witten back outside to WR as we did early in the season at times caused huge mis-matches that worked well and should work again if called at opportune times.
And lastly, we have to throw some more deep balls regardless if they are successful or not. The defense has to be forced to cover the entire field, not just a third of it like they are doing right now. Price with his speed, Glenn with his and also I'd get Thompson motioned out of the backfield and running routes down the sidelines to atleast take a safety or LBer with him to get more one-on-one matchups for Witten and Glenn downfield.
We have the weapons.
Bledsoe knows how to use them. But we have to be willing to change a few things and dictate the playcalling more than just trying to run the ball 30+ snaps a game.
Denver's defense is said to be smallish upfront. So I'm assuming that we want them to see the film of the Lions and get ready to stop the run on Thursday.
But what I'm hoping for, is that we use the pass to setup the run and keep Denver off-balance with passes on 1st down and 2nd down and try to run for short yardage on 3rd downs instead of the reverse we've been doing.
:clubbed:
The chessmatch goes on.
We'll see.
