Re: Two reasons wny Wade blitzed more...

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Yep I pretty much agree with all of this.

To be honest, the OLB situation is very close to what I think a lot of us expected so for me, I don't really use the word disappointing. I never had high expectations for that group this year.

My consistent position has been that we didn't have good OLBs last year either, it was a weakness then too, yet we were fine. 12th in points allowed. This year, the DL and secondary got much stronger with the same OLB weakness.

So far the result is good. I'm not experiencing much angst at all...that said, I'm fairly certain they address the position in the offseason. I'd be surprised to see them address it during the season but Snead and Co. are ever opportunistic so if a good trade presented itself, who knows.

Well...they were better last year.

Again, 21 sacks just from OLBs in 2017. That's appx. 1.3 a game. And that was without Suh. So far this year it's 0.33 a game. And that includes playing a couple of beat-up OLs.

They do have talent at DL and in the secondary so I don't know how much of an issue it will be.

But logic alone says it will be some kind of issue.

Sacks directly relate to scoring since stats show that a team that gets sacked on a drive has a significantly lower chance to convert 3rd down. That means a sack has a fairly high percentage chance of subtracting a series and therefore a scoring opportunity.

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At first glance with stats, yeah they were better. But stats aren't everything. Or more specifically, one stat doesn't tell the whole story. As I posted yesterday, we can't make an apples to apples comparison because Wade is calling things completely different this year.

Blitzing #'s: 2017 40%; 2018 18%.

That's a huge difference. That alone can account for the difference in sacks.

Everything is not personnel so unless someone can show a way to decipher between what's personnel and what's scheme, I'm gonna assume that the huge disparity in sack percentage is due to the blatantly obvious stat that jumps out.

IOW, I think it's an issue of Wade's choosing.

Part of the reason Wade is going this route could be because, while I agree that sacks are important, Wade (and former DC GW for that matter) are on record as stating that QB pressure is more important. As long as he's getting sufficient pressure with only rushing 3 or 4, he can shut down the run game and smother the passing attack.

Look at the results.

So Wade blitzes when he had OLBs and now doesn't when he doesn't? Not sure that's it.

BTW I don't care about stats, I care about sacks. They could get them last year, so far this year they can't.

They're not getting qb pressure from the outside either.

Sooner or later that's a flaw that will bite you.

It's a good enough defense to do a lot of things, but, not only is lacking an outside rush a flaw that will cause problems somewhere along the line, my bet is that they jump all over themselves addressing it in the off-season.

It reminds me of the discussions where some people dismissed the Rams redzone issues last year because after all they were high in scoring. Yet if you look at the Rams they themselves clearly knew about the issue, did not dismiss it, directly addressed it, and so far the results seem to be better. So my bet is that in a similar vein, after the season they don't act like lacking an outside rush is okay--they make sure they fix it.

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My opinion isn't so much that it's Wade blitzes when he had OLBs and now doesn't when he doesn't because for one, I maintain it's too early to know if personnel, i.e. not having OLBs relative to last year, is the issue.

I think Wade chooses to not blitz this year because 1) he thinks he can generate a pass rush just fine with Donald, Suh, Brockers and one more body, and 2) better run D and the ability to play zone coverages with 7/8 bodies back.

I do agree that they will decisively address the issue after the season; just like they did after last season where they drafted multiple OLBs and DEs. My position isn't that the edge rush is good this year; it's that it's not much worse, if any, than last year.

I don't know if anyone measure QB pressure from the outside but I clearly recall last season and after three games, we weren't getting any then either. The OLBs last year also weren't containing the run at this state of the season. I know both of these things because I clearly remember posting with disgust in the GT forum around game 3 or 4 that after the season ALL of our LBs would be replaced.