2018-2019 NFL Season Thread Football • Page 1683

When CBS gets the next Super Bowl hopefully nantz won't be there

 

I never ventured into the Super Bowl thread, but congrats on the Super Bowl W!

Now can you guys join the rest of us and wait at least a decade before you get another one? I promise you’ll appreciate it more!

 

Yeah I love Romo. Honestly just let him do it himself. Or bring John Madden back just to have a Romo tell him to shut the fuck up every time he speaks

 

Romo makes Nantz better.

 

We did that already! 2004-2014. I don't wanna do it again lol

 

DirecTV will die if they lose the nfl lmao

 

Good

 

Texans legend at it again

 

This is so petty I love it

 

3 technique DT don’t have the same run gap responsibilities in an attacking 4-3 as the 1-technique (Suh) does. Sometimes that position is used like, throwing a jackknife into the backfield. You just want a crazy athletic dude that’s fierce with his hands, gets consistent leverage, impossible to block for long. Id say part of his job is to wear down the opposing OL and mess with their confidence blocking.

You could say it’s the rest of the DL being loaded, there’s validity to that point. It is favorable that everyone can occupy blockers and keep the opposing OL hands full. But 99% of players there would not get 16.5 sacks, even if they had that kind of supporting cast, and were given the same green light to pass rush at all costs.

That’s a crazy number for interior DL, just about unheard of in modern football. He’s a sack machine which is rare regardless of the context. And it shows just how head and shoulders above everyone else Donald is, in terms of athleticism & motor. They’re focusing on his best attribute, which is, one lineman can’t stop him from getting past.

Having a guy you HAVE to double team is a huge leg up. Yes, the Pats erased him, but by having to commit their gameplan to him, they only scored 10 points until the very end because the rest of the line was wreaking havoc. You make the offense a little more predictable that way, because they can only really use blocking schemes that focus on Donald and thus avoid running in his direction. Being able to narrow down the opposing playbook always helps.

Maybe he misses the running play sometimes, but often being that FAST into the backfield forces the RB to adjust and dictates where he will have to go. It takes multiple defenders to box in a RB,
and in a way the shepherd’s dog is the 3 technique DT that forces him to change directions unexpectedly.

 

Yeah Donald is a beast

 

You say that the rest of the line was wreaking havoc but they really weren't. And on the contrary, they didn't use blocking schemes to avoid running in Donald's direction: most of the time they ran right AT him. It's the exact same approach the Patriots used on Watt during his MVP caliber season (on a much weaker team) and it worked the exact same way.

I get what you mean by all this in a world where this is correct, but the problem is almost all of this is wrong. All the things you're saying he prevents is exactly what the Patriots were able to do. He is definitely a sack machine but "one lineman can’t stop him from getting past" is wrong because most of the time it'd be a lineman + a quick chip, and Sony Michel has him burned and he's playing catch up. 20.5 sacks is not unheard of in modern football because JJ Watt did it on worse defenses than the Rams defense TWICE, one of those seasons playing the same role as Donald (I'll give you that in 2014 he was playing all over the line and shouldn't be looked at as a 3-4 interior guy as much). And again, you don't HAVE to double team Donald. You can play away from him AND play right at him if you do so intelligently, and the Patriots consistently did while remaining very difficult to stop. I get that the Rams ended up containing the Pats from scoring THAT many points but that's considering a missed FG and a 4th down where the Pats very well could've just kicked another FG. If Aaron Donald was doing well at playing 3 technique DT with Suh right next to him in this game the Patriots would've been calling/succeeding with VERY different plays than they did. They exploited the hell out of him in the same way they did JJ. The big difference is Donald wasn't asked to carry his defense.

 

Aaron Donald is obviously very very good but he's far from unbeatable as a player and New England showed that. But we're still treating him like he's unbeatable and was excellent in this specific game where he did very little of value.

 

I saw something that Donald beats his block in 2 seconds or fewer a fourth of the time.

 

I just don't care about that if you end up missing your tackle. Results matter way too much to me for me to be like "yeah but he could've made that". If he didn't he didn't.

 

Idk, to me it comes off like more of a success by Belicheck than a failure by Donald. You’re right that they ran right at him. But they were clever about throwing him off with draws, delays, & counters. It was patient, like they let Aaron make the first move and then ran in the hole he left at the line. It was a very good gameplan and it worked because Donald isn’t asked to be patient in run gaps and Belicheck took advantage.

 

I get why you’d be annoyed that people treat Donald like he’s Watt, though. Because he’s not nearly the run defender Watt is.

He’s strictly just a really scary pass rusher who sometimes simply blows up the backfield. He makes splash run plays but that does not necessarily mean he’s playing the gaps

 

Exactly, and when you throw so many picks/dollars at the rest of your defense you have to expect the result to be different. It's why I think Aaron Donald is very beatable and why I'm not willing to praise Wade Phillips for holding the Patriots to so few points. The two points go hand in hand to me.

 

I also don't like how Donald seems to start a lot of shit in games haha. Idk. I was ranting to Matt about this the other day. It seems like he starts so much trouble in games a la Clowney (but more outside of play than during play), rather than like...let's say, Khalil Mack.

But yeah I definitely recognize that there's some bias there due to my team having Watt.

 

There was also a time where Watt played a similar style to how Donald played in this game and the narrative was "IS WATT SLOWING DOWN??" so it's weird

 

Aaron Donald - Pitt Panther Legend

 

I’m just not drawing the same conclusion you’re drawing haha. To me holding the Pats to 13 total is a win by the defense. If the Rams offense generates even half their normal output they stand a good chance to win this game.

And I think it’s more of a strategic thing. Belicheck coached his line to catch an attacking front out of position, and to have his runningback know how to let these blocks develop before rushing through the line.

This is why attacking defenses / dream team defensive lines are vulnerable. The goal is for them to overwhelm, but a solid rushing attack will bait them and seal them. You have to have big guys occupying space to stop a strong power rushing attack.

 

I believe that if your star players are DTs and the opposition runs the bulk of their offense through the running attack, your defense isn't performing the way it needs to be performing. That's just me. I also think the Patriots were well capable of scoring more than 13 points and chose to take field position/touchdown opportunities rather than easy FGs. Hell the secondary was more consistent than the front 7 at the end of the day and that's despite that one dude talking shit to the media getting burned by Edelman for an MVP performance. They got few sacks, few TFLs, few turnovers for the amount of money they're all paid to be this allegedly amazing defense, with superstars at the positions the Patriots had the most success in.

 

Drag him Dus