Blocking & tackling after Turnovers
 

I came across this aspect in a Greg Blache interview and wanted to get your thoughts on this.

We need a lot of work on blocking after we create a turnover on defense. All good defenses (Ravens, Pats, etc.) have showcased the ability to return a fumble or INT for a score on numerous occasions. Except for this year, it seems that the skins D hasn't had a culture of creating many turnovers for the last many years. This shows in their blocking after a turnover - mostly, they're just elated that a TO was created. There was no reason why Smootie shouldn't have returned his INT for a TD against the Ravens. Taylor could've scored a TD against the bears with some better blocking.

Similarly, after an offensive TO, we rarely see plays where our players prevent a score. Ladell Betts' feeble attempt on Ed Reed was pathetic. To be fair, we do have people like Coles who never give up - his play against Seattle last year, where he knocked the ball out of the interceptor's hands was memorable. We missed two tackles on Azuma in the Bears game. Part of the problem this year has also been that our TOs have been caused in the backfield deep in our own territory. Any thoughts?

ladell's attempt, or lack there of against azumah last week was pretty awful as well!

Do you have the whole interview? Blache is one of the best assistant coaches to interview in the league. He's extremely candid

Very interesting.

Imagine if those TOs by our offense don't get returned for TDs. Given the way our D has been playing (and given our relatively lame opponents) we'd probably be 4-2, even with the same turnover ratio and passing woes.

Lost in a lot of this week's analysis is that Blache went back into Chicago, took a no name beat up D-line, and basically won the game. Of course, he did it with Williams, the rest of the staff, and the players (!!), but it's still a nice personal victory.

I agree I thought Taylor was going to score but all I saw were Chicago lineman in his way, where were the defenders?

I think his argument about the culture here is on point, glad to see it changed. How long has it been since we've had a score on a return, punt, kickoff, fumble or pick? I can think of Lavar's season changing score on Carolina three years ago, but we always seem to be on the short end of that stick.

It would seem to be the natural progression of our defense, first and foremost be solid against the run, then force turnovers and only then can we try to score with those turnovers. I love that Blache is making it a point of emphasis, clearly it was something he did in Chicago I mean Mike Brown won two games in a row with interception returns. God knows we've given up enough tds on picks and fumbles and punts, I'd be shocked if we go the entire year w/o a couple of our own.

hmm... ST blocking sucks and TO (offensive and defensive) blocking sucks... think they could be linked? ST coverage is also not great, though its a bit ahead of the blocking...

surprised to hear blache be so open after hearing so much gushing and spin by gibbs and bugel... glad we got him.

ST coverage is horrible too. I was pissed off when Chicago tried to fool us with the handoff that the Ravens did to us.

they wouldn't have tried it if it didn't work... luckily they didn't get a TD off it though.

I'm still having nightmares about the fake to Deion. Maybe we should try that, although with the problems we're having blocking in the return game I can see that blowing up in our faces.

[QUOTE=smootsmack]Do you have the whole interview? Blache is one of the best assistant coaches to interview in the league. He's extremely candid[/QUOTE]

My bad...it was in Wilbon's chat house in response to one of the questions and in his article on the Bears game. Here's the transcript below.

Lexington Park, Md.: Good column today, but one that made me worry. Is the Skin defense getting to the point where they feel that they have to win the game? It seems that when you get to that point the defense is going to take some bigger risks, be it going for more interceptions instead of deflecting the ball, and trying to strip it instead of making the tackle. That means there's more of a chance for a big play to go against the defense. Too much aggressiveness will cause this.

Are the coaches worried about this? Or will they be able to keep the defense aggressive, but not to the point of making huge mistakes looking for the big play?

Michael Wilbon: Hey everybody...Sorry we had to delay for an hour but I'm just getting in from Chicago..And this first question is a really good one. How much should a defense be responsible for? That's what I was asking Gregg Williams, Greg Blache, Shawn Springs and Fred Smoot yesterday after the game. Of course, having played between a 7 and 9 1/2 every week for six weeks, they think they can do more and should do more. I don't believe they think they are going to start gambling for interceptions and that sort of thing.
What Blache talked to me about was blocking after turnovers, after recovering fumbles and picking off passes. Tampa Bay made an art of it for five or six seasons. We'll see how the Redskins do. But aggression in a defense is rarely bad. And remember, when LaVar comes back and Phillip Daniels comes back and Andre Lott comes back they should be able to rotate guys a little more, keeping them fresh, and they should be more aggressive if Williams wants to do that in the fourth quarter.
But I'm a firm believer in building a team defense-first. The Patriots defense gets little credit, but that defense was better than the offense in both Super Bowl seasons. We know about the Ravens defense, and the Tampa Bay defense...The offense ain't good, so you go with your strength, right?

I just think that it's nice that we can be complaining about not doing enough good run blocking after a defensive turnover! What a huge change from last year.

Actually, last year we ranked in the top third in takeaway defense (I'm 90% sure of this, cooking dinner, I'll check later) but we didn't seem to hold them when it mattered.

I suggested on another post that our defense should work on turning turnovers into touchdowns. Joe Crisp suggested that I was asking too much since the defense is playing well. Greg Blache talks about that and other points to improve upon and I would like to here Joe's opinion about what Greg Blache said. Maybe it makes sense coming from an experienced coach rather than an enlightened fan.

It would be nice to have the D score, but to expect them to carry the entire team game in and game out is a little unrealistic. The offense needs to start producing, simple as that.

I agree Matty. That's the only "flaw" I see in the D is that they dont score on the turnovers. That was how Balt won their SB when they had an even worse O than the skins have now - defense scoring on turnovers. If the skins D can get that to happen more often they will be even more devestating.

Baltimore had a better offense during their SB run than we have right now, it's not even close. They could run the ball and Dilfer made enough plays to keep defenses honest, we can't say the same of Brunell right now. Plus they had one of the all-time great defenses, our D is very good but not close to being an all-time great.

Matty, I'm not sure how you could say Balt had a better O than the skins do now when that season the Balt O went something like 6 games without scoring a TD. The skins O may not score much but they do score.

I agree hough that Balt did get the running game going enough to eat clock and Dilfer played well enough to not lose games but that did not happen until sometime in Nov.

[QUOTE=Mattyk72]It would be nice to have the D score, but to expect them to carry the entire team game in and game out is a little unrealistic. The offense needs to start producing, simple as that.[/QUOTE]

Your'e missing the point. Greg Blache mentioned the defense doesn't have the mindset to block after a turnover because they are so few and in between from the past seasons. The defense is so happy to have the ball that they don't think about returning it for a TD is an insightful observation for a Coach. It's wonderful that we're stopping the run but a defense that produces points is not too much to ask when there are defenses that are scoring against us. That should be the motivating force since none of those defenses are in the top five. Of course, the offense should score more points. Week six has come and gone and I'm certain that the offense we watched in agony will not surface in week eight. Gibbs has devoted the entire bye week time to pass protection and deep pass plays.

[QUOTE=irish]Matty, I'm not sure how you could say Balt had a better O than the skins do now when that season the Balt O went something like 6 games without scoring a TD. The skins O may not score much but they do score.

I agree hough that Balt did get the running game going enough to eat clock and Dilfer played well enough to not lose games but that did not happen until sometime in Nov.[/QUOTE]
So are we comparing our offense right now vs. Baltimore's through those first 6 games?? In that case it's pretty even.

If we're comparing our offense now vs. theirs at the end of their season I definitely think they had the better offense. We can't move the ball through the air at all right now.

That Baltimore offense was horrific, didn't they go like 8 weeks without an offensive touchdown? But I agree with Matty, I'd still take those guys.

Passing game - They could at least hit on a few long balls whereas anything over five yards downfield seems to be an adventure for us right now

Running game - I wanted to say even but that team had Jamal Lewis running for 1300 yds and Priest Holmes ran for another 500.

Turnovers - Say what you want about Dilfer but he knew his role and played it to perfection. He only started 8 games but his numbers were similar to Brunell, sans the fumbles and picks for scores.

The missing ingredient in this is special teams. Baltimore had Jermaine Lewis who was a threat to return punts and kickoffs back for scores. So far Johnny Morton hasn't demonstrated that ability us, so far at least. If we had better special teams, we at least put ourselves in a better position to win some of these games. If we can at least not lose the special teams battle every week then our defense is playing well enough to win a lot of games for us.

Clearly we now have a defense that is playing superbly. Gibbs is helping them out by running the ball to limit their time on the field. Now if Gibbs can just get the passing game together then we'll be alright.

[QUOTE=SUNRA]I suggested on another post that our defense should work on turning turnovers into touchdowns. Joe Crisp suggested that I was asking too much since the defense is playing well. Greg Blache talks about that and other points to improve upon and I would like to here Joe's opinion about what Greg Blache said. Maybe it makes sense coming from an experienced coach rather than an enlightened fan.[/QUOTE]
I took exception to your suggestion that the defense needed to score more points because you were trying to defend Mark Brunell's ineptitude by asking why the defense wasn't scoring points. I thought that suggestion was a little absurd, considering that the defense's primary purpose is to stop the opposing offense from scoring points-- and this defense is among the best in the league at achieving that goal.

Points scored by the defense are something that shouldn't be counted upon-- they certainly help, and it certainly makes sense to explore the possibility of improving upon that aspect of the game, but you can't reasonably expect to lean upon the defense to score touchdowns week in and week out to win games. That's the offense's primary purpose, and this offense isn't getting the job done.

And by the way, this "enlightened fan" has sought out Greg Blache for enlightenment about defensive tactics, has spoken with him about his defensive philosophy, and has a deep respect and admiration for the man. I completely agree with his opinion that the defense can improve in the area of capitalizing on turnovers. But that doesn't mean we should direct our blame to the defense for losses which were clearly the result of ineptitude on the part of the offense and special teams.

Defenses like the Ravens of 2000 are extraordinarily rare, and the fact that it would take a defensive effort of that magnitude to overcome the deficiencies of this offense is absolutely appalling. Forgive me if I'm too busy dissecting the offense to point fingers at the defense.

[QUOTE=memphisskin] Running game - I wanted to say even but that team had Jamal Lewis running for 1300 yds and Priest Holmes ran for another 500.

The missing ingredient in this is special teams. Baltimore had Jermaine Lewis who was a threat to return punts and kickoffs back for scores. So far Johnny Morton hasn't demonstrated that ability us, so far at least. If we had better special teams, we at least put ourselves in a better position to win some of these games. If we can at least not lose the special teams battle every week then our defense is playing well enough to win a lot of games for us.[/QUOTE]
Well, portis is on track for 1600 + 300 through the air and betts could easily get 300-400 still, so i'd be willing to say the running games are fairly equal...

btw, johnny plays in KC, we got chad... and he did return a 50 and 30 yarder in one game, both got called back... overall the blocking just hasn't been there in any way... last game he tried to run them back anyways and got 3, 1, and -2 yards or something, i wouldn't pin the blame on him (thrash and betts also had no blocking and crap returns when he was out), but our STs just aint happening right now.

hey joecrisp, maybe what we really need is to bench portis and fire brunell so we can start our true super stars.... that's right, cliff russel and timmy hasslebeck. With them, all roads will be paved with gold and super bowl victories will be assured ;).

We lost our superstar Cliff Russell, he's lighting up scoreboards now in Cincy

damn, scratch that then.