Front 7 Makes or Breaks Secondary
Posted 07-05-2010 at 10:21 AM by Flugel
Quote:
Originally Posted by Flugel 
9 years and 3 chins ago, the Cleveland Browns were trying to overcome 5-27 football. We drafted Courtney Brown as the very 1st pick in 2000 to improve our pass rush. Clearly the idea behind it was if we can sack passers or make them throw the ball before they wanted to - it's gonna generate turnovers. Unfortunately, Brown could never stay healthy long enough to justify that 1st overall pick. Just bad luck.
The good news? We had an athlete named Jamir Miller who could give us a Pro Bowl level pass rush by changing his stance from a 2 point to a 3 point (hand in the dirt). I think he finished with something like 16 sacks so our fate was we got the pass rusher we wanted from that 1st overall pick 1 year later in 2001.
Why am I reminding everyone of this? Because in 2001, our record improved to 7-9 (with 2 OT losses) in lieu of the non competitive football we witnessed previously. The way we did it was by leading the conference with intercepting oppossing passers. As I said, if we can sack a QB or make him pass the ball before he wants to - it's gonna generate turnovers.
At this time our secondary was comprised of the following starters and rotation guys: Devon Bush, Earl Little, Percy Ellsworth, Corey Fuller, Daylon McCutcheon and rookie Anthony Henry. Many of these guys were not in their prime and we had a wide eyed rookie. Consequently, the talent we had in our secondary was viewed around the league as average at best. So HOW does a group like this lead the conference in intercepting passers? The pass rush off the edge from Jamir made for some VERY favorable matchups due to the massive time constraints to throw the ball on us. That's how a wide eyed rookie like Anthony Henry collects 10 INTs covering the slot receivers in obvious passing situations reflecting down and distance. He never had to THINK, which is the perfect scenario for a rookie.
Relative to the here and now. Seeing us climb back up into the top 10 out of 32 teams at sacking the QB in 2009 was encouraging (40 sacks). Had Roth been here the whole year we might have been top 3-5 with that. The homer in me thinks we've got some momentum on this pass rush thing from our front 7. That being the case, the facelift to our secondary with Brown, Haden and Ward could provide our pass defense with the backend big plays our pass rush is capable of giftwrapping them. Why can't Haden cover the same types of receivers with the same types of success Henry provided us as a rookie? Sheldon Brown is coming off 1 of his best seasons as a pro, which makes me think he can be better than Corey Fuller was. And I think Eric Wright has the ability to be better than McCutcheon was. There might be a learning curve at Safety per say but the talent seems superior to Earl Little and Devon Bush.
The one difference between 2001 and the secondary we have now is I think we have better blitzers in our secondary. That's Elam's strength and I enourage people to lookup some of Haden's Youtube footages - he was incredible on the corner blitz. A former QB knows where QBs want to set up shop after the snap. If you check out his highlight sacking Kentucky's QB - he was hitting their QB on the plant step of a 3-5 step drop. Killer good man! There's another impressive video out there of him hitting another QB in a SEC red unifrom where the QB lost the football.
Our running game is gearing up to rest our defense more so the fresh legs can prevail. Winning time of possession battles helps this all even more.
On paper, we look to be ready to take 1-2 steps forward with our offseason defensive additions. Let's hope we can stay healthy so this is possible when it's game time. Right now alot of media experts don't think we've made enough progress and changes to move our volume of wins up from 5 to 8 or 9. Winning 3 or 4 more games shouldn't be earth shattering IMO. That said, all my wishful thinking over the years has never made me any good at predicting our record.
Thanks for reading!
As you were,
Tom Flugel
The good news? We had an athlete named Jamir Miller who could give us a Pro Bowl level pass rush by changing his stance from a 2 point to a 3 point (hand in the dirt). I think he finished with something like 16 sacks so our fate was we got the pass rusher we wanted from that 1st overall pick 1 year later in 2001.
Why am I reminding everyone of this? Because in 2001, our record improved to 7-9 (with 2 OT losses) in lieu of the non competitive football we witnessed previously. The way we did it was by leading the conference with intercepting oppossing passers. As I said, if we can sack a QB or make him pass the ball before he wants to - it's gonna generate turnovers.
At this time our secondary was comprised of the following starters and rotation guys: Devon Bush, Earl Little, Percy Ellsworth, Corey Fuller, Daylon McCutcheon and rookie Anthony Henry. Many of these guys were not in their prime and we had a wide eyed rookie. Consequently, the talent we had in our secondary was viewed around the league as average at best. So HOW does a group like this lead the conference in intercepting passers? The pass rush off the edge from Jamir made for some VERY favorable matchups due to the massive time constraints to throw the ball on us. That's how a wide eyed rookie like Anthony Henry collects 10 INTs covering the slot receivers in obvious passing situations reflecting down and distance. He never had to THINK, which is the perfect scenario for a rookie.
Relative to the here and now. Seeing us climb back up into the top 10 out of 32 teams at sacking the QB in 2009 was encouraging (40 sacks). Had Roth been here the whole year we might have been top 3-5 with that. The homer in me thinks we've got some momentum on this pass rush thing from our front 7. That being the case, the facelift to our secondary with Brown, Haden and Ward could provide our pass defense with the backend big plays our pass rush is capable of giftwrapping them. Why can't Haden cover the same types of receivers with the same types of success Henry provided us as a rookie? Sheldon Brown is coming off 1 of his best seasons as a pro, which makes me think he can be better than Corey Fuller was. And I think Eric Wright has the ability to be better than McCutcheon was. There might be a learning curve at Safety per say but the talent seems superior to Earl Little and Devon Bush.
The one difference between 2001 and the secondary we have now is I think we have better blitzers in our secondary. That's Elam's strength and I enourage people to lookup some of Haden's Youtube footages - he was incredible on the corner blitz. A former QB knows where QBs want to set up shop after the snap. If you check out his highlight sacking Kentucky's QB - he was hitting their QB on the plant step of a 3-5 step drop. Killer good man! There's another impressive video out there of him hitting another QB in a SEC red unifrom where the QB lost the football.
Our running game is gearing up to rest our defense more so the fresh legs can prevail. Winning time of possession battles helps this all even more.
On paper, we look to be ready to take 1-2 steps forward with our offseason defensive additions. Let's hope we can stay healthy so this is possible when it's game time. Right now alot of media experts don't think we've made enough progress and changes to move our volume of wins up from 5 to 8 or 9. Winning 3 or 4 more games shouldn't be earth shattering IMO. That said, all my wishful thinking over the years has never made me any good at predicting our record.
Thanks for reading!
As you were,
Tom Flugel
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