dogfish
09-16-2007, 01:51 AM
better late than never, right?
home opener against the faders, with a chance to take over first place in the division if the cheaters beat the chokers-- yea, shanahan isn't licking his chops! if the team isn't focused, heads may roll. . .
i think the key matchup is probably our offense against their defense, as i simply don't fear their O-- and while their special teams are solid, they aren't the gamechangers that buffalo's STs are. . . the vaunted fader D got shredded pretty badly last week, so you know they'll be hungry-- whether that was an aberration or an omen of things to come, remains to be seen. . . i didn't see last week's game, so i can't say for sure whether martz's complex scheme fooled them, or they just failed to execute-- but their secondary obviously came up small in the clutch. . . they didn't give up a ton of rushing yards, but surrendered close to 300 passing yards and three passing TDs. . .
although they have a quality pair of corners, i'm sure shenanigans took notice-- normally i'd expect a fairly conservative gameplan against a D that played us as stout as theirs did last year (especially with a weak O on the other side of the ball), but i have a feeling that we may look to be aggressive in the passing game. . . last week we used primarily short-to-intermediate passes, lots of slants and skinny posts-- it may have been because buffalo runs a cover-2 base and likes to keep their safeties deep, and it may have been that we were protecting our line with mostly three-step drops, but i think we may throw a few more deep balls this week. . .
last week we ran a ton of base offense other than on 3rd downs, and probably worked with twin receivers to one side 75% of the time, far more than usual. . . asomugha is a big, physical corner who matches up well with javon walker-- while walker will inevitably make some plays, i won't be surprised if he doesn't match his sterling week one performance. . . of course, we may look to move him around and isolate him against fabian washington on the other side. . . when walker is against asomugha, i'd expect us to target him with slants and comebacks that make it easy for him and hard on the DB. . .
on the other side, washington is lightning quick, in terms of both his recovery speed and his break on the ball, and is very aggressive jumping routes-- that can put him in place for big picks, but can also be used against him. . . cutler will have to be very careful if he attacks washington with quick outs or square ins where he can undercut the route, but we might be able to exploit marshall's size advantage with the post or the corner. . . also, i'd love to try taking advantage of his aggression with a slant-and-go, especially if we can match javon against him. . . stanford routt is their nickel-- he is also blazing fast, but isn't great at route recognition. . . stokley should be able to use his precise route-running to get open against him, but cutler will have to get the ball there quickly to negate routt's recovery speed. . . this may be our best matchup, and i suspect we'll see a few more 3-wide sets, both to attack routt, and to spread the field for the running game. . .
i'm sure DC rex ryan will mix up the coverages in an effort to confuse cutler, but the fade is primarily a man-coverage team. . . i'm sure they'll blitz a lot, and from different directions. . . graham saw a fair bit of duty at H-back last week, especially when we went with the gun-- that will probably continue (hopefully nalen can get those snaps up a little higher!). . . against a fast, aggressive D, he's more valuable as a bodyguard for our franchise than as a pass-catcher. . . graham lacks the speed to separate against oakland's fast OLBs and safeties, and if we want to get him involved in the passing game we should use play-action to get him open out in the flat. . . he has the size to be effective if we can isolate him on huff in the red zone, though. . . speaking of huff, cutler will have to be aware of him all the time-- they used to use charles woodson in a hybrid "rover" role and let him roam free in the secondary, and i think they want huff to take over those duties. . . he'll probably be moving around a lot, and i wouldn't be surprised if they use him to cover the slot as much as they can rather than taking a linebacker off the field to bring in their nickel. . . cutler will have to locate huff in his pre-snap reads. . . we didn't use that much motion against buffalo, and we may use a bit more this week to help jay identify coverages. . .
although they didn't have to cover for a lot of deep drops, i though our OL was solid in pass protection last week-- hopefully that will continue, but the fade's DL is a tougher challenge than buffalo. . . their ends aren't better, but the interior DL is. . . sapp can still cause problems, and tommy kelly will probably move inside on passing downs. . . lepsis looked pretty good against schobel last week, and will have to be equally sound against burgess-- he's more of a speed rusher who lacks schobel's powerful bull rush, and will test lepsis' ability to kick out quickly. . .
ryan does a good job mixing up his defensive fronts, and i expect them to try to confuse cutler with multiple fronts and a lot of pre-snap movement. . . i'm sure we'll see a lot of stacked lines, both with over and under fronts where one OLB lines up off the DE's hip, and 46 type looks with a safety in the box. . . they'll try to crowd the LOS to limit henry, and i'll be satisfied if we can get a workmanlike 100 yards out of him this week. . . terdell sands is a big dumptruck in the middle of the line, and tommy kelly (who moved out to DE this year) is a big base end. . . their LB are fast and come downhill quick-- kirk morrison is a beast in the running game, and thomas howard can blaze off the end (though he sometimes takes false steps and can overpursue-- could possibly open up a few cutback lanes). . . their LBs are big and physical, and fill hard against the run-- sapp's ability to take on blockers in the hole will be pivotal to our ability to establish a ground game. . .
i give it better than even odds that shenanigans has a reverse somewhere in his scripted plays-- i think we'll pop one on 'em early in an attempt to take advantage of their aggression, and slow that pursuit down a bit. . . we know walker runs very well in the open field, and pay attention if hixon comes in the game early at WR! we were very successful with the few screens we ran against buffalo, and i'd love to see us use a few more this week to get henry into space rather than banging him into stacked fronts all the time-- i've said for years now that we should run more screens to take advantage of our mobile linemen. . .
i still think lepsis and nalen are the heart of our running game. . . although he didn't look that powerful off the ball, i was pleased with myers' quickness and ability to get to the second level-- he needs to work on hitting moving targets a little more squarely, though. . . i'm not impressed at all with eric pears as a run blocker-- he doesn't look like a natural knee-bender, and he comes out of his stance too high and loses leverage, allowing DLs to get under his pads so he can't drive them back. . . i know he's tall, but he's got to find a way to come off the ball a little lower if he's going to be successful-- he does wall off nicely, though. . . with mustard back, we may see a few more two-TE power formations, particularly in short-yardage situations. . .
home opener against the faders, with a chance to take over first place in the division if the cheaters beat the chokers-- yea, shanahan isn't licking his chops! if the team isn't focused, heads may roll. . .
i think the key matchup is probably our offense against their defense, as i simply don't fear their O-- and while their special teams are solid, they aren't the gamechangers that buffalo's STs are. . . the vaunted fader D got shredded pretty badly last week, so you know they'll be hungry-- whether that was an aberration or an omen of things to come, remains to be seen. . . i didn't see last week's game, so i can't say for sure whether martz's complex scheme fooled them, or they just failed to execute-- but their secondary obviously came up small in the clutch. . . they didn't give up a ton of rushing yards, but surrendered close to 300 passing yards and three passing TDs. . .
although they have a quality pair of corners, i'm sure shenanigans took notice-- normally i'd expect a fairly conservative gameplan against a D that played us as stout as theirs did last year (especially with a weak O on the other side of the ball), but i have a feeling that we may look to be aggressive in the passing game. . . last week we used primarily short-to-intermediate passes, lots of slants and skinny posts-- it may have been because buffalo runs a cover-2 base and likes to keep their safeties deep, and it may have been that we were protecting our line with mostly three-step drops, but i think we may throw a few more deep balls this week. . .
last week we ran a ton of base offense other than on 3rd downs, and probably worked with twin receivers to one side 75% of the time, far more than usual. . . asomugha is a big, physical corner who matches up well with javon walker-- while walker will inevitably make some plays, i won't be surprised if he doesn't match his sterling week one performance. . . of course, we may look to move him around and isolate him against fabian washington on the other side. . . when walker is against asomugha, i'd expect us to target him with slants and comebacks that make it easy for him and hard on the DB. . .
on the other side, washington is lightning quick, in terms of both his recovery speed and his break on the ball, and is very aggressive jumping routes-- that can put him in place for big picks, but can also be used against him. . . cutler will have to be very careful if he attacks washington with quick outs or square ins where he can undercut the route, but we might be able to exploit marshall's size advantage with the post or the corner. . . also, i'd love to try taking advantage of his aggression with a slant-and-go, especially if we can match javon against him. . . stanford routt is their nickel-- he is also blazing fast, but isn't great at route recognition. . . stokley should be able to use his precise route-running to get open against him, but cutler will have to get the ball there quickly to negate routt's recovery speed. . . this may be our best matchup, and i suspect we'll see a few more 3-wide sets, both to attack routt, and to spread the field for the running game. . .
i'm sure DC rex ryan will mix up the coverages in an effort to confuse cutler, but the fade is primarily a man-coverage team. . . i'm sure they'll blitz a lot, and from different directions. . . graham saw a fair bit of duty at H-back last week, especially when we went with the gun-- that will probably continue (hopefully nalen can get those snaps up a little higher!). . . against a fast, aggressive D, he's more valuable as a bodyguard for our franchise than as a pass-catcher. . . graham lacks the speed to separate against oakland's fast OLBs and safeties, and if we want to get him involved in the passing game we should use play-action to get him open out in the flat. . . he has the size to be effective if we can isolate him on huff in the red zone, though. . . speaking of huff, cutler will have to be aware of him all the time-- they used to use charles woodson in a hybrid "rover" role and let him roam free in the secondary, and i think they want huff to take over those duties. . . he'll probably be moving around a lot, and i wouldn't be surprised if they use him to cover the slot as much as they can rather than taking a linebacker off the field to bring in their nickel. . . cutler will have to locate huff in his pre-snap reads. . . we didn't use that much motion against buffalo, and we may use a bit more this week to help jay identify coverages. . .
although they didn't have to cover for a lot of deep drops, i though our OL was solid in pass protection last week-- hopefully that will continue, but the fade's DL is a tougher challenge than buffalo. . . their ends aren't better, but the interior DL is. . . sapp can still cause problems, and tommy kelly will probably move inside on passing downs. . . lepsis looked pretty good against schobel last week, and will have to be equally sound against burgess-- he's more of a speed rusher who lacks schobel's powerful bull rush, and will test lepsis' ability to kick out quickly. . .
ryan does a good job mixing up his defensive fronts, and i expect them to try to confuse cutler with multiple fronts and a lot of pre-snap movement. . . i'm sure we'll see a lot of stacked lines, both with over and under fronts where one OLB lines up off the DE's hip, and 46 type looks with a safety in the box. . . they'll try to crowd the LOS to limit henry, and i'll be satisfied if we can get a workmanlike 100 yards out of him this week. . . terdell sands is a big dumptruck in the middle of the line, and tommy kelly (who moved out to DE this year) is a big base end. . . their LB are fast and come downhill quick-- kirk morrison is a beast in the running game, and thomas howard can blaze off the end (though he sometimes takes false steps and can overpursue-- could possibly open up a few cutback lanes). . . their LBs are big and physical, and fill hard against the run-- sapp's ability to take on blockers in the hole will be pivotal to our ability to establish a ground game. . .
i give it better than even odds that shenanigans has a reverse somewhere in his scripted plays-- i think we'll pop one on 'em early in an attempt to take advantage of their aggression, and slow that pursuit down a bit. . . we know walker runs very well in the open field, and pay attention if hixon comes in the game early at WR! we were very successful with the few screens we ran against buffalo, and i'd love to see us use a few more this week to get henry into space rather than banging him into stacked fronts all the time-- i've said for years now that we should run more screens to take advantage of our mobile linemen. . .
i still think lepsis and nalen are the heart of our running game. . . although he didn't look that powerful off the ball, i was pleased with myers' quickness and ability to get to the second level-- he needs to work on hitting moving targets a little more squarely, though. . . i'm not impressed at all with eric pears as a run blocker-- he doesn't look like a natural knee-bender, and he comes out of his stance too high and loses leverage, allowing DLs to get under his pads so he can't drive them back. . . i know he's tall, but he's got to find a way to come off the ball a little lower if he's going to be successful-- he does wall off nicely, though. . . with mustard back, we may see a few more two-TE power formations, particularly in short-yardage situations. . .