Quote:
Originally Posted by 53Fan
Our offense needs to get on track and start making plays. There is no doubt about that. Pittsburgh won the SB last year with the #1 defense. That didn't stop them from taking a DT, Ziggy Hood, with their first round pick. Whether the offense is good or bad, you still want the other parts of your team to play as well as they can don't you? Or is the defense suppose to just stand pat and say, "We'll get better after the offense gets better?" The fact that we need to get more sacks and turnovers, and get off the field quicker has nothing to do with the offense. That's what good defenses do. Blache can't do anything about the offense but he CAN make the defense better and I'm not satisfied with them being "pretty good" regardless of how the offense is playing. I'm not sure how wanting the defense to play better is taken as an endorsement of the offense. I love defense and would like to see them kick ass. Regardless of how the offense plays, at least I could get some pleasure from that.
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Indeed there is a correlation between what the two units do, as well as how they play on the field. That correlation was a topic of conversation which Blache was very much a part of when he was the defensive line coach, Greg Williams was DC, and Gibbs was the HC. Blaches' coaching philosophy is simular in many ways to that of Williams minus the creative blitzing. He does not beleive sack totals/or lack thereof should be a barometer for guaging the effectivness of a defense.
Between Gibbs, Williams, Blache and the secondary coaches the subject of how Gibbs wanted the defense to play based on his struggling offense was discussed. They arived at the conclusion that many of Williams' exotic blitz packages would be curtailed, mainly because Gibbs felt if the defense was repeatedly burned by the blitz (in an effort to make big plays/cause turnovers) they could dig a hole deeper than his offense could produce out of. Whatever ambivalence if any there may have been, did not prevent the defense from being effective. He was of the beleif that a vastly improved offense would reduce any sizeable onus on the defense, hence the hiring of Al Saunders.
Blache's defensive philosophy is sound and effective. He may not have all the parts he'd like to have to run some of the sets he would like, but sound nonetheless. There are times when he would like to be more aggressive, play more man and press coverages but his personnel dictate otherwise.