What routes beat that blitz?

[Pessimist_cowboy]

You CANNOT blitz elite QBs. You can and will often find success blitzing Romo. Manning, Brees, Rodgers will have the ball out of their hand in an instant to their hot receiver/scat back. Romo holds the ball.

End thread

rodgers is one of the worse . He looks bad every time they play the niners , Seahawks , or Giants . When they blitz him he plays poorly .

Is there anyone with that rowdy pic that has any sense ?

 

[Arkyvarminter]

Screens might have worked but watching defenders line up across from NO ONE and come free was strange to watch..Even Gruden acknowledged that much....

 

[MissouriCowboy]

Should have ran more. Then pass off the play action

Yes run. Gash and gash

 

[Yakuza Rich]

The problem wasn't really the routes. We would pass protect with 5/6 (Murray would pass protect and then go out for a pass if he could). They were blitzing 7 or 8.

I think this is a problem with modern football...QB's prefer to have more receivers out there than they prefer having extra blockers. It's great when having more receivers works, but when it doesn't, you need to start adding more blockers instead of insisting that more receivers is eventually going to work.

The issue that we had is that we did run hot reads, but they picked up minimal yardage. It's a 'lot of things have to right and we're only picking up about 6 yards' type of thinking that got us in trouble in the past.

When Weeden came into the game, we used more protectors and he had all day to throw. And eventually receivers got wide open.

Gruden was mentioning this all game long...Washington could not get pressure on us unless they blitzed because they had more rushers than we had blockers.

It's part QB'ing, part coaching, etc and in general the mentality of extra receivers is somehow always better for the QB.

That's why I got excited earlier this year when we would used max protect more frequently. It gave Romo all day to throw and Dez will get open and will catch passes if he has enough time to run his routes.

I honestly think the fix is fairly easy, but sometimes coaches and QB's are stubborn.






YR

 

[lostar2009]

Screens my man, check down to murray in the flats or a hail maker. Once you burn a D a few times with a blitz they usually back off. I thought in the most obvious 3rd down situations where they was faking or attempting the blitz the screen option should have been used there.

 

[lostar2009]

The problem wasn't really the routes. We would pass protect with 5/6 (Murray would pass protect and then go out for a pass if he could). They were blitzing 7 or 8.

I think this is a problem with modern football...QB's prefer to have more receivers out there than they prefer having extra blockers. It's great when having more receivers works, but when it doesn't, you need to start adding more blockers instead of insisting that more receivers is eventually going to work.

The issue that we had is that we did run hot reads, but they picked up minimal yardage. It's a 'lot of things have to right and we're only picking up about 6 yards' type of thinking that got us in trouble in the past.

When Weeden came into the game, we used more protectors and he had all day to throw. And eventually receivers got wide open.

Gruden was mentioning this all game long...Washington could not get pressure on us unless they blitzed because they had more rushers than we had blockers.

It's part QB'ing, part coaching, etc and in general the mentality of extra receivers is somehow always better for the QB.

That's why I got excited earlier this year when we would used max protect more frequently. It gave Romo all day to throw and Dez will get open and will catch passes if he has enough time to run his routes.

I honestly think the fix is fairly easy, but sometimes coaches and QB's are stubborn.






YR

The realist ever wrote.

 

[31smackdown]

Is this like groundhog day?.. every time we play the Commanders they blitz and then try to bait the hot read for interceptions. So Romo wasn't baited into the throw but he was baited into the audible out of the run because of 9 man fronts and we never adjusted the play calling... This is the book on Romo.. show him 8-9 man fronts to force the pass, then bring pressure up the middle while dropping into the hot read area. Outside of the one game against philly where they threw bubble screens all day to kill them, 95% of the time this results in the offense falling apart with not enough protection and no quick routes after the bracketed hot read.

 

[Wood]

you might see Arizona blitz every play. To be honest....I am surprised teams didn't blitz Romo like this sooner.

 

[Phoenix]

draw play? Potential for huuuuuuuuge gain

 

[Yakuza Rich]

Is this like groundhog day?.. every time we play the Commanders they blitz and then try to bait the hot read for interceptions. So Romo wasn't baited into the throw but he was baited into the audible out of the run because of 9 man fronts and we never adjusted the play calling... This is the book on Romo.. show him 8-9 man fronts to force the pass, then bring pressure up the middle while dropping into the hot read area. Outside of the one game against philly where they threw bubble screens all day to kill them, 95% of the time this results in the offense falling apart with not enough protection and no quick routes after the bracketed hot read.

We ran the ball plenty and they really didn't blitz us on first down.

Eventually Washington started to see that Dallas was going to run on first down and throw on 2nd down. So they started to blitz on 2nd down because Dallas wasn't effective against it.

I don't think we abandoned the run at all outside of the drive in overtime which for whatever reason we seemed to think it was better to throw the ball instead to get 1 yard with 3 downs left than it was to run the ball with Murray.

This idea that you 'just run the ball' is stupid because we were being blitzed on 3rd and long. That was the issue.

I think the book on Romo is that if you blitz like Washington did by overloading both sides, he prefers to have at least 4 receivers out there. That leaves with less blockers than pass rushers and if the hot reads are not working, he won't budge. The other problem is that he tries to get the pass protection perfect because he doesn't have enough blockers and that's when he starts audibling like crazy, lots of 'check with me's' and that is when disaster happens because people are not always going to be on the same page.

The less is more with Romo theory applies to not only capping his pass attempts, but also limiting the amount of audibling he is making. When he does too much audibling, the plays don't get off in time, the offense loses its ebb and flow and there is bound to be miscommunication. It's essentially reactive offensive football instead of making the defense react. And that's when we get days like this on offense. We need to get 7 or 8 blockers in there and given him and the receivers more time and less audibles and check with me's so everybody is on the same page and the snap gets off quicker.




YR

 

[Hoov]

You CANNOT blitz elite QBs. You can and will often find success blitzing Romo. Manning, Brees, Rodgers will have the ball out of their hand in an instant to their hot receiver/scat back. Romo holds the ball.

End thread

He was taking way too long last night to get set to throw. The play he got hurt on the blitzer was pretty far off the line and took a while to get there.

 

[jobberone]

Yes run. Gash and gash

They tried that and it's boom or bust. You get past it you break into the second level. Otherwise you are running into a brick wall. IF you can run it with run blitzes and 9 on or near the LOS then kudos. You will quickly stop that. We didn't nor can most teams. You beat it on the edges or over the top. You can beat it underneath but if they fake it then you are likely throwing it into coverage where the QB and receiver expected it to be free. Not always a good idea and this is where Romo throws a decent number of INTs.

Why they didn't target that rookie CB with one on one coverage is beyond me. Or isolate Escobar on him. No back shoulder. Just throw it up and use their leaping ability/height and the sidelines to make a play or catch a flag. Screens to Dunbar and Murray would have been great if you could slow them down a little. Heck, they got bolder and bolder as the game went on.

Why they didn't go max coverage is another mystery.

 

[Floatyworm]

The problem wasn't really the routes. We would pass protect with 5/6 (Murray would pass protect and then go out for a pass if he could). They were blitzing 7 or 8.

I think this is a problem with modern football...QB's prefer to have more receivers out there than they prefer having extra blockers. It's great when having more receivers works, but when it doesn't, you need to start adding more blockers instead of insisting that more receivers is eventually going to work.

The issue that we had is that we did run hot reads, but they picked up minimal yardage. It's a 'lot of things have to right and we're only picking up about 6 yards' type of thinking that got us in trouble in the past.

When Weeden came into the game, we used more protectors and he had all day to throw. And eventually receivers got wide open.

Gruden was mentioning this all game long...Washington could not get pressure on us unless they blitzed because they had more rushers than we had blockers.

It's part QB'ing, part coaching, etc and in general the mentality of extra receivers is somehow always better for the QB.

That's why I got excited earlier this year when we would used max protect more frequently. It gave Romo all day to throw and Dez will get open and will catch passes if he has enough time to run his routes.

I honestly think the fix is fairly easy, but sometimes coaches and QB's are stubborn.






YR

Excellent points....

Why we didn't keeps 2 RBs or a RB and a TE in to chip blitzers then release is confusing. We did it a couple of times...especially the dump off to Murray for a long gain. Yet Romo made it look like it was a desperation last second throw....in reality a QB should be begging for teams to blitz to expose themselves for the huge gains.

 

[TheMarathonContinues]

You CANNOT blitz elite QBs. You can and will often find success blitzing Romo. Manning, Brees, Rodgers will have the ball out of their hand in an instant to their hot receiver/scat back. Romo holds the ball.

End thread

Brees sure looked like crapped when this "TERRIBLE" defense blitzed him a few weeks back. I have a hard time calling you elite when you can't win on the road.

And Peyton did a GREAT job against the Seahawks blitzing in the Super Bowl.

 

[31smackdown]

We ran the ball plenty and they really didn't blitz us on first down.

Eventually Washington started to see that Dallas was going to run on first down and throw on 2nd down. So they started to blitz on 2nd down because Dallas wasn't effective against it.

I don't think we abandoned the run at all outside of the drive in overtime which for whatever reason we seemed to think it was better to throw the ball instead to get 1 yard with 3 downs left than it was to run the ball with Murray.

This idea that you 'just run the ball' is stupid because we were being blitzed on 3rd and long. That was the issue.

I think the book on Romo is that if you blitz like Washington did by overloading both sides, he prefers to have at least 4 receivers out there. That leaves with less blockers than pass rushers and if the hot reads are not working, he won't budge. The other problem is that he tries to get the pass protection perfect because he doesn't have enough blockers and that's when he starts audibling like crazy, lots of 'check with me's' and that is when disaster happens because people are not always going to be on the same page.

The less is more with Romo theory applies to not only capping his pass attempts, but also limiting the amount of audibling he is making. When he does too much audibling, the plays don't get off in time, the offense loses its ebb and flow and there is bound to be miscommunication. It's essentially reactive offensive football instead of making the defense react. And that's when we get days like this on offense. We need to get 7 or 8 blockers in there and given him and the receivers more time and less audibles and check with me's so everybody is on the same page and the snap gets off quicker.




YR

Right.. I did not say they stopped running completely like in previous years although as you said they for some reason were set on play action or passing on second down instead of wearing down the defense over time like they have in previous games. I agree with what you said that once Romo starts tweaking the protections and routes things get messy pretty consistently. I just think that you have to have a better answer than whatever they were trying to do. It looks like they tried to go more max protect towards the end, but it just resulted in 2 more guys in Romo's lap trying to pickup blitzers deep in the backfield, which has also happened in the past. The OL and Murray have been able to pick things up pretty well all year, even when outnumbered so it will be interesting to see what the Commanders were doing to create the pressure consistently. It just would have been nice to see some more quick hit blitz breakers against those fronts instead of trying over and over to block long enough to beat single coverage down field. I can only assume they felt they had severe mismatches against the secondary and were surprised by the tightness of the coverage and the discipline that the Commanders showed after they were gashed by being over aggressive and losing contain in previous weeks

 

[TheMarathonContinues]

I think the biggest way to combat it is similar to what they screwed up and ran into last night. When Murray missed that block and ran out into the flat that actually worked? Run some things where you commit to a block and then run into the flat. He'll be open every time.

 

[Hoov]

i'm rewatching some of the game this morning. there were guys open. romo was just rattled and dropped his eyes instead of releasing the ball.

Given that Dez was one on one at times Im not suprised - I would expect guys were open because they were bringing so many on the rush

 

[WV Cowboy]

There was one screen pass all night and that was when Weeden was in the game. I rarely see Romo throw screen passes, does he not like them? He can change the play at the LOS and he saw blitz after blitz after blitz. Why would he not throw ANY screen passes?

Right, everyone is saying we will address the blitz situation.

I'm like you, .. why did we not do anything yesterday to counter their blitz? Anything.

Why do we have to go and work on it, ... why were we not ready for it yesterday?

 

[Hoov]

The issue I've always had with Romo is he doesn't trust his first read a lot of time, and if you're not 100% open, sometimes, he won't pull the trigger. The reason is because he believes he can buy more time for things to open up, where as a none scrambling type QB will just go with the read and move along as Weeden did. They did not allow Romo to spin away or get outside of the pocket, you have to release that ball. Another thing is, if you don't have a powerful arm, sometimes you just hold the ball waiting for something else to come open.

The last play, I believe that if Romo's back was in tact, he would've chosen a different player to throw to instead of the player who had a corner in front. There was actually a player deeper on that route, same side as Dez but much deeper that seemed wide open but a hurting back can prevent you from even attempting that throw.

Running screens all night is tricky because they did not blitz a lot of the times but threatened to, but I would've run a minimum of 5 to 8 screens and 5 to 6 WR screens just to let them know that if you try this ****, we will be moving 75 yards down the field in one shot, either that or put 2 TE in the game, spread them out in an empty set, then audibled them back into max-protection and HUGE PLAYS down the field would've happen for Dallas. We figured this out, yet Linehan and Garrett had no clue.

As far as your point about Romo not trusting his first read - there may be something to that - Weedon and Orton in the same offense would routinely get the ball out quicker than Romo. Why that is i dont know - maybe it is as you say.

About him always thinking he can buy more time - that much is obvious from watching the games. And sometimes he does. The Commanders blitzed but also made sure they had containment so that Romo would have no choice but to throw quickly or just go down. On most of those 3rd downs he just curled up and went down without even attempting a throw. That is troubling as far as the future. You cant tell me that the entire coaching staff was oblivious and failed to run a play with a checkdown or hot route for romo all night - maybe once or twice but throughout the game ? It would be more likely that Romo wasnt going there for whatever reason.

 

[Hoov]

Right, everyone is saying we will address the blitz situation.

I'm like you, .. why did we not do anything yesterday to counter their blitz? Anything.

Why do we have to go and work on it, ... why were we not ready for it yesterday?

As far as the blocking assignments, T Fred said he needs to look at the tape and you cant tell everything from the pictures so i would say some credit needs to be given to Haslett for cghanging things up and creating confusion. But like others have said, they could have run more screens.

More concerning to me is that they often brought a max blitz that created a problem. The big concern is that Romo was so slow to try to get rid of the ball while under a max blitz. It seemed like he was still hoping that he would have time to wait for plays to develop.