Originally posted by Buchy:
Hey Jonny, good news on your dad and I'm glad to hear it.
Any chance you can look specifically at the Oline and our pass protection struggles. It seems to me that both Carolina and Arizona got lots of pressure down the middle and that causes real trouble on passing plays. I can't tell if it's missed assignments or just guys getting beat. Specifically, Iupati and Goodwin are worrying me in pass protection, it seems so easy for opposing teams to get straight down the middle into Kap's face within a second or two.
I actually think we should now let Iupati walk and look to get a guard and centre that are good in both pass and run blocking, I think the line is too unbalanced towards running plays. The other option might be getting Iupati to lose a little weight and get a bit quicker on his feet as well as work his technique.
yeah, you're definitely not wrong on giving up a lot of pressure up the middle. Where we really struggle in pass pro is against the big, aggressive defensive tackles. Although, it wasn't all on Iupati. When Iupati gives up pressures it's more to a lapse in technique than his body size.
Here's a few of the pressures we gave up - these are just some examples we had quite a few in the game. Most were mental errors or technique errors.
Here we have Snyder in as a TE, we're going to max protect with the TE pass blocking. Arizona had shown a lot of 5-6 man pressures in the first drive of the game, so, we bring in Snyder to help protect - he's probably a better matchup on the edge in pass blocking than VD or VM
Notice Staley's good technique on the right. He keeps a good knee bend "squatting" into his set, he also keeps his shoulders square towards the opponent. On the other side, Snyder needs to have more knee bend and he doesn't keep his shoulders square.
Because of the poor technique he gets beat by a simple hand swat and speed rush. Staley didn't....
That's the shot just as CK threw the ball, I didn't go any further because it'll make you cringe seeing your QB get rocked like that. Snyder gave up that pressure/hit
Here Arizona has their DT lined up on Iupati's outside shade(they do this on almost every play. The lapse here is that Iupati thinks Gore is going to give help to his outside shoulder, so his first step is wrong.
Instead of stepping out like Boone did, he steps back with his outside foot, he's immediately given up leverage, space and an angle against the defender. He should know Gore is going to give help to his right so he can take an outward step.
You see Gore is stepping up into the inside hole to help but Iupati's already beat to the outside, CK hasn't even hit his last drop step yet.
Gore tries to help but it's too late. This wasn't as much Iupati not have the right body type, he's athletic enough to do these things, he just makes a mental error there I think.
Here Arizona shows a cover 0 look. They bring 7 guys up to the LOS to show pressure.
They end up coming with only 4 rushers on this play as they drop 3 of the guys who showed. This means the line has to rapidly adjust to what it see's and shift to the right where Ari is trying to overload.
You see how Iupati has to make it over to the backside DT to make the shift work and for us to be able to block everyone. The unfortunate thing is the all out blitz looked forced us to keep VD in pass pro, so we only have 3 receivers against 7 defenders out in the pattern.
Iupati does a nice job of sliding over, but Boone, like Iupati on the play before, takes a false step, instead of stepping up and out with his outside leg he steps back, giving up leverage.
You see how the defender has won, this is just as CK was setting up on his back foot. Because of the coverage on the backend on our 3 receivers, CK has to try and escape.
Ck does a good job of escaping and makes a 4 yard gain out of the play.
These kind of things happened throughout the game. It wasn't any 1 O-lineman. They all gave up something like this at some point. Arizona and Carolina have the fiercest fronts we've seen, against guys like that you have to play with perfect technique because these guys are so big and strong if you're off on your technique you're not going to be able to muscle them around regardless, one bad step and you're beat - as you've just seen.
