01-24-2019, 03:17 PM
(01-24-2019, 02:46 PM)Whatever Wrote: The Chargers ran that all year and were a Top 10 unit. Their top 3 LB's only played 67, 37, and 25% of their defensive snaps on the year. Power run is an obvious counter, but power run is the obvious counter to any "small" personnel group. There is no perfect defense that's good against everything. It's always a chess match. This is just another piece to use.
After watching it for years, if Ben Roethlisberger wants to check to a run on 3rd and 10, I'll take my chances that someone is going to make the tackle short of the sticks.
This is where stats without context get you in trouble. Perryman got hurt mid year which is why he only played 37% of TOTAL SNAPS, however before he got hurt he played on average around 70% of the snaps in each game with most far beyond 70%. When you take into account the commonly held understanding that nickle is the new base the fact you have two backers who averaged about 70% playing time then sprinkled in another 3 or 4 guys with significant playing time you can discern that they played a lot of nickle with occasional base. They also used James as a sub LB at times, especially after Perryman went down.
Playing nickle or even dime is a far cry from NO BACKERS, which is what they ran in the playoffs. It's a gimmick and it got exposed and would have gotten exposed by any decent O coordinator.
