Quote:
Originally Posted by GTripp0012
I don't know what constitues a "bend don't break" defense (because no defense tries to be bad with a lot of field behind them and then decides to step it up, so it has to be a philosophy thing), and I'm not sure there's anyway to prove that most of the teams we have played this year do that. I'm not completely sold yet that "bend don't break defense" is a term that the talking heads just made up to describe a defense that seems to get lucky at oppertune times (because luck is a significant part of the game, but no expert wants to admit that). But at the least, it's an interesting theroy.
Brunell's horizontal game was money in the red zone last year as we had no goalline running game early on last season. This season, the only thing that changed was the coordinator (well, and we lost Robert Royal, which is bigger than anyone realizes), so it would be hard to blame the players for any dropoff in redzone efficency. I think one contributing factor is that we have fewer field goals this season because our range has declined significantly. We are doing more punting from inside the opponents 45 this season than any other team.
At least Frost is having a good year.
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it's always strange hearing "Luck is a significant part of the game" from the resident Warpath stat-evangelist.
"bend don't break" is most certainly a defensive philosophy, just ask "10yd cushion" Rogers about it (he just does it TOO far up). setting your defensive backs in an umbrella around the first down marker will give you the yards underneath but limit the gain. that's why everyone here was clamoring for an actual passing threat that can attack secondarys and god forbid, throw PAST their safeties. something Jason Campbell very amply represents.
last year we had a vertical running game to offset the horizontal passing game. that part i obviously don't blame on Brunell, but i can put some of the blame of this year's lack of production with the horizontal run game on no.8. if Brunell was more of a vertical threat, defenses wouldn't clamp down on the sides so much, right where CP would run to (and ultimately get hurt)