From PFT:
Miami’s pass rush wasn’t overwhelming with Quinn and Wake and the current makeup of the defense hasn’t led to many predictions of a big jump in productivity. On Thursday, though, defensive coordinator Patrick Graham downplayed the personnel side of things.
Graham said he was confident the team had enough pieces to build an effective pass rush and stressed the role the coaching staff will play in making sure those pieces are successful.
“The beauty about the pass rush, and I’ve always said this, is it’s very fluid,” Graham said at a press conference. “Everything is very fluid. As you watch it and you try to get an understanding of it, you can take advantage of it in different ways, different shapes, different forms and different people. It doesn’t always have to be the cookie cutter idea that people have of a 6-foot-5, 250 pound whatever who runs a 4.5. That doesn’t necessarily mean that’s going to automatically guarantee you pass rush success. To me, pass rush success is us game-planning it, the players executing it and us trying our best to affect the quarterback.”
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I agree with that to a certain degree.
A plan can be flawless but you still need the talent and intelligence to take advantage.
That said, sacks can be created by confusing an offense which doesnt necessarily require as much on the talent front.
I'm excited to see how it goes. -
I agree....grabbing top talent isn't as important as the actual scheme. That doesn't mean we'll be good this season rushing the QB, but I wouldn't say we can't get a good rush just because Wake is gone.
Where did Wake go guys? I definitely want to watch that team some this season since I can't help but root for him. Hoping it's a contender!Surfs Up 99 likes this. -
Surfs Up 99 likes this.
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I expect the pass rush to be really ugly (in a bad way) this season. The 31 sacks that the Fins created last year were 4th worst in the league, and only one better than the two teams who were tied for 31st. And now Wake and Quinn are gone without being replaced.
The year before, we only had 30, but managed to tie for 27th. 33 in 2016 was close to the bottom, 31 in 2015. And Wake generally accounted for about a third of those himself.
Our leading returning sacker is Jerome Baker with 3.0, and he's not expected to be used in a pass rush role under the new staff. Second leading? Bobby McCain, a small DB who played hurt most of the season! I'd like to be pleasantly surprised by what happens this coming year, but my expectations are rock bottom.
Since sacks became an official statistic, the fewest that the Miami defense has created in a season is 21 in 1987. I think that they have a shot to "break" that record this year. -
No matter how you slice it, losing Wake and Quinn is a massive blow to overcome. We honestly asked them to do too much with too little help though- Wake's sack production almost always came from Wake alone flat out making someone look stupid with his rare combo of speed, power and endurance. Technique and scheme can go a very long way towards making average players look like superstars...so fingers crossed!
Again, you're probably right and it's going to be ugly...but I'm trying to throw a little faith in the new regimen anyway since it's almost not worth watching any other way. I was against all of this and I don't think I can stand an 0-16 season.Pauly likes this. -
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We had Wake and Suh together who were individually formidable pass rushers but we didn’t get formidable production as a team. Which goes to saying that talent without scheme is wasted. On the other hand it don’t matter how great you scheme is if you send out a High Scool JV team.
I am more confident about our scheme this year than the last one we had. That’s more by default because it’s hard to imagine a scheme that was more predictable than what we ran.hitman8, djphinfan, Surfs Up 99 and 1 other person like this. -
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Anyway....Back to the topic...I personally am very excited about the defense this year. I think we're going to be pretty good defensively. I don't normally say that, but I really like this coaching staff so far. The importance of drafting "football players" was evident in the draft.KeyFin likes this. -
I am liking what Grier has done this offseason. Hopefully he can continue to make the right moves, and give Flores with as much talent to work with as possible.AGuyNamedAlex likes this. -
How do you put the opponent under pressure to score on every possession?
1: Hold onto the ball and chew up the clock on offense.
2: Get into position to threaten to score at least a FG on every possession.
Gase’s offense produced a lot of three and outs and a lot of 50+ yard TDS. But it didn’t hold onto the ball. It didn’t score reliably. Our offense just didn’t create any pressure on the opposing offense because they felt they would have multiple opportunities to score and weren’t worried about us scoring on them.Unlucky 13 likes this. -
You have to look at what Flores ran in NE. That's all we have to go on and he had great success coaching that D. They don't value edge rushers the same as they do DTs. Along with rating near the bottom of the league in run D, I think that is a big reason why they drafted Wilkins. I think they will run more stunts with safety and corner blitzes. Force stuff outside and let the speedy LBs along with the DBs and Ss clean that s--t up. jmo
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“I don’t believe in blitzing really it’s not the philosophy I believe in”
So he relied on his front four to win their battles to rush the QBs and the occasional safety or slot blitz.
What a poor coach he was.. -
My fear is that the "Patriot Way" won't be as effective without Belichick and Adams being underhanded cheaters. I'm fairly certain that after the SpyGate debacle, Belichick and Adams stopped having assistant coaches be a part of or knowing about their cheating tactics. So because of that, I'm worried our coaches think the things they learned were on the up and up and will work if just implemented properly, not realizing there was a whole other competent kept from them.
Hopefully, they learned to adapt to their players and that will be enough. -
Too bad our coaches were too stupid to realize that.Dol-Fan Dupree likes this. -
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First off is the intelligence factor. You have to study your opponents, know their strengths and weaknesses and have the knowledge that YOU have to adapt to exploit those weaknesses.
And you have to possess the talent to be able to adapt and not be a one sided bull in a china shop pass rusher. -
On the plus side, after a slow start, Patricia actually had a fairly talent bereft defense playing really well by the end of the season. On the other hand, his offense badly regressed.
There were also lots of rumors of player discontent and disconnect, frustration and just lots of weird ****.
I think Flores has a good shot to handle the media and player relationships and achieve buy-in way better than Patricia. We will see if he can have a similar uplift on D while not losing the O completely.