VJCPatriot

And you don't think that 'Blitzburgh's' aggressive 3-4 defensive scheme didn't have a lot to do with Harrison's success? Look, I'm not disputing that Harrison is a talented player in his own right, but the 3-4 defense tends to make its OLBs look better than they actually might be.

I think that's why year after year, Pittsburgh can let big name linebackers walk and still enjoy a tremendous amount of success on defense with replacement players. Linebackers are fungible in their 3-4 system. I think the same is true of the Pats 3-4 to a certain extent. This may also well explain BB's lack of emphasis in drafting linebackers early outside of Jerod Mayo.

Vrabel and TBC do have a certain degree of talent that contributed to their success, absolutely. But take them outside of the Pats system and do you see them putting up Peppers or Jared Allen type numbers? I don't see it happening.

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Sleeping King

I hate to downplay the significance of doing well against a division rival but TBC did have half of his sacks in the two games against Buffalo.

I'm certainly glad he is back but you are mentioning him in the same sentence as some elite pass rushers.

AndyJohnson

I think a lot is perception also. Our system simply doesnt lend itself to individual players getting gaudy stats. And perception is that stats equal talent. Defensively that simply isnt true, and in our system its not close to true.
We absolutely value versatile players. We want the LB who is better in his area of weakness not the one who has the greatest strengths. Then we ask them to do it all, at the expense of sack totals.

Brady2Welker

We beat them by 1 and 7 respectively, it wouldn't be a leap of faith to say that without 5 QB sacks that we could have lost the game. I know Fitzpatrick isn't P. Manning who you need to have pressure on to succeed, but after seeing Chad Henne shred our defense, I wouldn't put it past Fitzpatrick to without being sacked.


I was going to comment on that, that if OP was was using raw data and drawing his own conclusions it was much accurate. That said, however, all data needs to taken with a grain of salt.


Also, regarding system players, although that's true, you want to tell me that most good pass rushers aren't system players? Jared Allen, immensely talented as he is would be slightly less good without the Williams wall. Freeney wouldn't be as great without their line too. Every defensive player is in some way, a product of the system. Because if you're with awful JAGs at Dline, you can get doubled/chipped all day.

AndyJohnson

And those games were 20% of our wins.
Taylor and Porter played them twice too
Peppers had 4 of his 10 in back to back games against the dregs in Washington and Tampa. Eliminate those 2, and TBC vs Buffalo, and you have Peppers with 1 more sack in 90 more rush attempts and still a lower ratio.
Peppers also had 16 of his 33 pressure in a 3 game span near the end of the season when the Panthers were out of it, so if you donwgrade TBC for inconsistency Peppers is equally incncistent. By the way, I think you will find that with almost any pass rusher.

patsinthesnow

YouTube - James Harrison intercepted Kurt Warner for 100 yards

You could argue it's the Steelers system, but a system player wouldn't make that play.

VJCPatriot

Why not? It was his assignment to drop back on that play. Warner did not anticipate Harrison dropping back, and on the runback he had some good blocking in front of him. That play happened by design. It's the perfect example of the Pittsburgh scheme at work. They blitz you and pressure you on one play, then bring pressure from a different area and/or drop a guy into coverage on the next.

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Sleeping King

Although I think the real difference that seems to be overlooked is that TBC isn't the focal point of a offensive teams strategy.

Peppers, Allen and Freeney are going against a glut of double teams and protection slides. I don't have the stats to back it up but I would venture to say he had half the double teams of those elite pass rushers. I just hope this doesn't come off as a bash TBC post. It certainly is not intended that way. He's the best we have right now at getting pressure.

PATSYLICIOUS

Great stuff, thanks for sharing.

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PatsBoy12

This is a very good thread. Great information!