When you watch football, you see a lot of plays that don’t go anywhere.  They look like a big muddle and it seems a bit boring when time after time plays are gaining only a yard or two.  If this is the case, start watching the Defensive Linemen.

Blitzes are exciting to watch.  Rushing a Linebacker or a Defensive Back at the QB on a passing play can make for some spectacular defensive fireworks.  But blitzing is risky.  LBs have a job to do, and that is stopping the run by plugging up any holes in the line, and helping out with pass protection.  DBs can’t afford to leave WRs and TEs uncovered because that is a sure fire way to give up a big play.  When you blitz the QB, you hope that you will so rattle the guy that he won’t be able to keep his cool and won’t see the guy that you left open.

But if you can get pressure on a QB with your front four Defensive Linemen, you aren’t taking any sort of risk.  Your LBs and DBs can sit back and concentrate 100 percent on their jobs stopping the run and the pass.  If the QB has to scramble to get away from a 300 pounder bearing down on him, very few of them can avoid the temptation to duck the head and run.

Two bad things happen to a QB who takes his eyes off his downfield receivers on a pass play.  One, he can’t pass the ball to someone he can’t see.  Two, it takes time (usually too much time) to reacquire the WRs down field even if they are wide open.  All good QBs have a mental clock that starts telling them after 5 to six seconds with the ball still in his hands that sooner or later, someone big is going to hit me hard in the back unless I get rid of this ball.

On running plays, if a Defensive Lineman can get penetration into the backfield on a running play, this means that the RB will often have to alter his route forward.  There may be a hole to the right between the RG and the TE, but if the DT just shoved a blocker into the middle of the path to that hole, then it is going to take the RB too much time to get there.  The hole closes and the play looks like an uninspired mess. 

So as a defensive coordinator, you want to have most of your tackles and sacks credited to your defensive linemen.  If your leading tackler is a DB or an LB, then you have problems.  You may still win the game, but you are not a fundamentally sound defense, and sooner or later, you are going to come out with an L or tow to go with all of those Ws.

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