I was amused to read that Wade Phillips,
head coach of the Cowboys,
that his game plan was to stop the Patriots from running, thus forcing
them to pass. Well his game plan was successful. The
Cowboys held the
Patriots to 2.6 yards /rush, but allowed Brady to carve them up for 388
yards and 5 touchdowns. You can’t really blame him for this game
plan. Phillips is from the old school of football that believes
in the
axioms “establish the run,” and “stop the run.” There’s an
interesting
article on coldhardfootballfacts.com in which the writers basically
debunk the myth that it takes a great running game to win
championships. It doesn’t really take any elaborate statistics to
know
that only one running back has ever won the rushing title and the Super
Bowl in the same season. That was Emmitt Smith in 1993. On
the other
hand, Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, and Joe Montana have all won Super
Bowls without great rushing attacks. Kurt Warner had Marshall
Faulk,
but he was also a great receiver as well as a great runner.
The league has changed to favor more
passing, and yet most coaches
still believe that the path to Super Bowl glory requires his team to
“establish the run.” Perhaps Bill Walsh truly was a genius when
he
ditched this idea and decided to establish the pass with his West Coast
offenses. The Steelers are probably the guiltiest of this
offense,
having had success with Cowher Power over the past decade and a
half.
Ben Roethlisberger is often criticized by the pundits who claim that he
is only successful if he has a good ground game and when he throws
fewer than 20 passes per game. I’ve watched every Steeler snap
for the
past decade, so I can say for sure that the Steelers’ vaunted ground
game would go nowhere without Roethlisberger’s timely and sometimes
incredible third down passes.
This brings me back to the idiocy of Wade Phillips’ game plan.
Bill
Belichick is famous for taking away his opponent’s greatest
weapon.
Though this may seem pretty obvious, it was not that clear for
Philips. The Patriots’ greatest weapon is Brady, not Sammy
Morris. I
wonder how Belichick, supposedly the NFL’s greatest defensive mind,
would attack a Tom Brady led offense. |
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Put probably
way too simplistically, there are two schools of thought on pass
defense. You can drop back the defenders and cover the receivers
which is basically the idea of the cover 2, or you can blitz to
pressure the quarterback and leave the defensive backfield
vulnerable. Of course you can do both, but not at the same
time. The trick is not to let the offense know which strategy
you’re using. Brady routinely beats them both. When he is
on his game, he is unstoppable. He can be thrown off his game,
though, if the rush pressure gets to him. Somehow, Jason Taylor
and the Dolphins defense routinely find ways to get to Brady. He
has lost in Miami 2 of the past 3 years, and barely escaped in 2005
when they did win.
I’m surprised more coaches don’t see this and apply maximum pressure to
get to Brady, especially for a team like the 0-6 Dolphins who the
Patriots play this Sunday. Their attitude should be, “He’s
going to beat us anyway, so we might as well take him down.” All teams
should have this attitude because the way Brady’s playing this year, no
one will stop him.
I’m not advocating that some defensive lineman should take out his
knees, but he barely gets dirty during a game. He was sacked 3
times Sunday, which doubled his sacks for this season. Why
wouldn’t a defensive coordinator just rush all 11 defenders to get to
him? Brady would in all likelihood complete a pass to someone
(they would all be open), which would go for a long touchdown, but
they’d probably score anyway, so you might as well get some hard hits
on Brady.
Al Davis famously said, “The quarterback must go down. And he
must go down hard.” Quarterbacks are only human, even
Brady. If they go down hard enough, often enough, they will
remember and play with more caution. The point is to get them out
of their comfort zone, not necessarily to hurt them. Brady has
played in his comfort zone all season. It’s time someone took him
out of it.
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