Thanks tedbear.tedbear wrote:Thank you to all the knowledgeable posters on this site for their thoughtful and insightful posts. Special thanks to Blitz for his analyzed break down of the: end - tackle stunt. For a fan of the game like me It is not easy for me to pick some of these things out. When I went back and re watched the game It was there just as you explained it.
This proves your point that these breakdowns are not physical breakdowns but scheme or mental breakdowns. Both of the latter come under the heading of coaching as the players are not prepared properly (Scheme) or if it is mental the coaches have to do a better job of making the players understand their assignments, If the players are not smart enough to do that the coaches have to make that assessment and simplify it a bit.
These are all the things that posters have been saying on this board for quite awhile now. With all this information it is safe to say that Dorazio is unwilling or unable to adapt, I am not going to challenge his knowledge of the game as he has proven that he is a great Offensive line coach but I will challenge that his system is not working and as a coach it is his job/responsibility to adapt or change to a new system that gives the players that he has the best opportunity to be successful. In that regard he has failed.
The Lions decided to get younger with their coordinator positions, hopefully at the end of the year they will do the same on the offensive line and make a change there, Not sure if Kelly Bates would be ready but from the positive reports that he seems to be getting he might be the change that we need.
An interesting way to watch offence in a game is to look at formations and then look at the offensive line play and then pick up the quarterback/tailback recievers. Offensive line play is more complex than receiving, running the football etc. I believe it to be the most challenging position, football intelligence wise, after the quarterback position.
Your made an excellent point tedbear... that either way.. scheme or have players understand their assignments its a coaching issue when players come free on a stunt. I think Rob Murphy said it best when he recently responded that Dorazio teaches the technical aspects of individual blocking well but there can be challenges with the systems he uses.
Offensive lineman make their blocks based upon the players lined up in the box. LaPo did a good job of explaining this on TSN.
The guard and tackle usually area block so that stunts are picked up. For example, in the Toronto game, when the tackle pass rushed to the boundary, the guard's first job was to look to his outside to see if the end was looping inside. The reason? Defensive tackles very rarely slant rush to the boundary, without a defensive end stunting inside.
Its' the center's job to pick up an inside blitzing linebacker against an even front. This is the set up for a defensive front with two tackles and two ends and the center is free. This is the pro set (rush four defensive lineman) that is the most common defense in the CFL.
Its the center's job to step back and set up to pass block, looking for an inside blitzer (even delayed) and helping out a guard is no defender blitzes inside. An 'odd' call is when the defense lines up with a nose tackle and there is no defender over the guards. This is your 3 man rush. However, it can be tricky. Its tough for the center to block the nose tackle alone. If the guard helps the center out, a defense will sometimes delay blitz a linebacker in the gap where the guard is helping the center to pass block the nose tackle.
If the defense lines up in an odd front, the center will make an 'over' call (man over him) and that means the back will pick up the nearest inside pass rusher, unless the center makes a 'solid' call, which means the guard will pick up the inside blitzing linebacker on his side and the back looks for the next blitzing defender. A 'over' call is when a nose tackle is lined up over the center and there is a defender over the guard position. That means that it will be the back's job to pick up the inside blitzing linebacker first, before looking outside to pass block.
Of course it gets more complicated than this but our Lions make it simple. We line up five offensive lineman and release the tailback. That means, when a team sends six players, there is one free defender and usually two if we fail to pick up the stunt. That way, our quarterback gets to be superhuman and is expected to throw a purrfect 50 yard pass with one second to throw the football, with a defender in his face and the second one hitting him from the side.
Then we can complain about our quarterback and start calling for the backup.
