Pass rushing against the Bills lacked disguise
 

After watching the Bills game, I had a feeling that our 3rd down defense had the issue mentioned in the topic. Then after the Monday night game between KC and Steelers, that feeling was only emphasized. So I decided to inflict more severe mental pain on myself and went back to watch the Bills game again.

Now that feeling of mine got confirmed.

Breaking down the entire game was too much of a task, so I decided to focus on 3rd down plays by the Bills. I took a screenshot of every starting lineup we had on those plays. The lack of disguise on our pressure packages was staggering. Here are some numbers:

1) There was a total of 16 times that we lined up for 3rd down (or 4th down), and that includes all downs that were replayed due to penalties.

2) Including defensive backs, our LOS lineup were
3 players - once
4 players - 8 times
5 players - 4 times
6 players - 2 times
7 players - once

Well this number is partially explained by the fact that we played very little press coverage on 3rd downs, so we only had a total of 14 defensive players line up at the LOS who were in slot/outside coverage positions.

3) A breakdown of those 60 players who lined up around the ball:
3 players - 7 times
4 players - 6 times
5 players - 3 times

4) Out of 60 players we had lined up around the ball, a staggering 45 (75%) played with their hand on the ground (and rushed the passer). So there was only a total of 15 standing players around the ball who the OL had account for in those 16 downs.

5) On 9 of those 16 3rd downs (56.25%), ALL PLAYERS AROUND THE BALL lined up with their hand on the ground

6) Out of the 29 players who didnt have their hand on the ground, only 5 were in a somewhat successful disguise, others showed either blitz or coverage, and did just that. This is purely based on my perspective, but I paused the plays, read the formation, and missed only 5 calls. And I am not a professional QB.

Now despite that analysis didn't include all the moving parts, it still showed me one of the biggest reasons why Fitzy looked so comfortable again. We didnt surprise him and we didn't make Bills OL calls more difficult by scheme. They knew exactly when they could double Jones (which was quite often). And we didn't even try to disguise our efforts, at least not with an effort visible to me.

When you watch any great defensive team play, you see more than often them showing blitz when playing coverage. Why they do this, is becouse they want to keep the OL guessing how many will come, and where they come from. Why is it that we don't even try to hide what we are on the LOS?

With our level of disguise, Jones will not reach 12 sacks this year, becouse the OL can safely double him on every down and we don't even try to exploit the openings created by those double teams. Funny thing is, he was even tripled on some downs, becouse the Bills had a blocking TE on his side and the Guard expected somekind of a support rush from that side and ended up toying with completely outmatched Jones while Fitzy had as much time as he needed.

Re: Pass rushing against the Bills lacked disguise
 

Great stuff.

Thanks for the hard work. (Gotta love patsfans; posters here always researching and coming up with this type stuff).

So, it wasn't clear to me; of those 16 times
how many did we actually rush 3, 4, or how many +4 more
how many outside blitzers (cb/s)? (i seem to recall only once - dont know if that was a 3rd down)

Re: Pass rushing against the Bills lacked disguise
 

I didnt write down the amount of rushers, becouse I focused more on the formations and looks we gave them.

But since I got the screenshots still here, I can look into that.

Re: Pass rushing against the Bills lacked disguise
 

This is exactly what i been saying since day 1. This scheme is garbage and Patricia has no creativity. He expects to win defensively by pure skill alone. This is the NFL buddy our team is not made of all stars. This is why our secondary is so bad, our scheme does nothing to disguise our flaws.

Re: Pass rushing against the Bills lacked disguise
 

I'm hoping that as the season winds down the Pats will add some wrinkles to our defense. Maybe Talib will give the coaching staff the boost it needs to stop playing such a vanilla defense. What's they're doing now is not working.

Re: Pass rushing against the Bills lacked disguise
 

Here you go, stats made to order. :)

Our rusher counts (THIS IS OF 13 PLAYS, because 2 false starts and 1 delay of game that were included in the 16 were impossible to include in here):
3 players - 3 times
4 players - 8 times
5 players - once
7 players - once

So that is kinda lame. Only 3 or 4 man rushes, and only two outside blitzes (both from slot). Only 1 all out blitz, and there I had only 1 guy in adequate disguise so eventually no one had a free lane to QB and Fitz made us pay.

Also that 5 player blitz has a run blitz. So we only had 1 pass down there, where we rushed more than 4. Combine that with our crappy disguise, and no wonder we didn't get much pressure on Fitzy.

EDIT:

Added down and distances (most of them obvious passing downs): Down & distances and rusher counts.
3&1 0 False start
3&6 4
3&16 0 False start
3&21 3
3&15 4
3&2 4
3&12 4
3&8 4
3&16 0 Delay of game
3&19 3
3&4 4
4&4 4
3&1 5 Run blitz
3&goal at the 2 7
3&9 3
3&3 4

Also, I need to correct/add few things to OP:

1) The 45 with hand on the ground was false. 48 is the correct number, so its even worse. Excluding the 2 false starts and 1 delay of game, the number is 43.

2) We had only 1 guy during the entire game, who didnt rush the passer on 3rd downs after putting his hand on the ground.

3) We had only 10 pass rushers in those 13 downs that I counted, who didnt have their hand on the ground. So total of 53 rushers on those 13 downs that I was able to count.

Re: Pass rushing against the Bills lacked disguise
 

A sad addition to this is that all out blitz we pulled on them on the 3rd&goal. Had we even tried to fake blitz earlier, they might have thought we are faking it there as well and someone could have gotten a free pass to Fitz. But since we didnt disguise at all earlier, they knew we were coming.

That play led to the Donald Jones TD, although I do have to say that it was a great throw by Fitz, blown coverage by Dennard(?) and Fitz was just about to run out of time.

Re: Pass rushing against the Bills lacked disguise
 

What scheme? All the Pats D does is line up to get shredded.

Then again, with their "coaching" they would probably get burnt trying to be creative too.

Re: Pass rushing against the Bills lacked disguise
 

Fantastic work.

Watching the game, it really seemed as though they were playing very vanilla, hoping to just keep the lead and make them drive down the field, and not get a quick score on a big play.

I wonder if the D is simply not getting it and forced to simplify