We Want To Be An Aggressive Defense. But Where Is It?

[The Don™]

Quoted from August

Defensive coordinator Brian VanGorder would like a more aggressive unit, but concedes he must first know that his defensive backs will hold up in man-to-man coverage.

Grimes is ready for a steady dose of man-to-man or zone coverage.

“We are willing to do whatever it takes for the team to get better,” Grimes said. “If that’s what we want to do, be aggressive and get after the quarterback, then we have to cover on the back end. I feel as though we can do that with the guys we have out there.

Quoted before the season started this year

Q: Will the defense be more aggressive this season?

A: That decision is always based, for all of us, on what we can do on the perimeter. We’ve got to see how some young guys develop. Chris Owens is still a young player. Dominique Franks is a young player and of course Grimy (Brent Grimes) is not here right now, so we are looking at those guys and we’ve just got to find out what they can do in one-on-one cover situations. That really is the deciding factor. Our personality is to always be aggressive on defense here with the Atlanta Falcons.

Q: Are we going to see more blitzing from the defense in 2010?

A: You just don't decide that you're a blitzing team. There are down and distance factors. There are quarterback factors. There's your personnel with respect to playing man-to-man. There are so many variables that go into making that decision. I think philosophically, we'd like to be considered a very aggressive defense. We'll continue to work that way.

I did a search on AJC and found all that. I remember TD saying something similar to what is quoted above but I couldn't find it. He said we want an aggressive defense. A defense that opposing quarterbacks don't want to play against.

My question is. Why haven't we seen the aggressive defense yet? Why are we so vanilla?

Atlanta continues to be second only to Chicago in terms of keeping their defense vanilla. In this game, once again, they used only two packages; base and dime although their slight nod to novelty is allowing John Abraham and Lawrence Sidbury to rush from a two point stance which they did on 11 occasions.

Do BVG and Smith think our CBs and safeties can't hold up in man coverage? Is it gonna be too late for BVG before we get to see his aggressive defense? I never saw UGA play when BVG was their coordinator, but I heard they were an aggressive unit from some smart fans on these boards. Honestly, I'm ready to see that defense and frankly tired of the soft zone and constant let downs on third downs.

[Top Flight]

we dont jam receivers, i dont understand

[madman88]

im glad u did that cause i was thinking about that inteerview too... this is soo sad, i mean our coach dnt trust playing man, and his excuse is you gotta think about this and that... like grimey said in an interview coming back, '' i just go cover my guy, its not all that complicated'' but hey our DC think it is for watever reason...

i dnt get it, throw the zone out the window, lets play bump n run single high weather we blitz or not, at least we wnt have guys running wide open from playing this pathetic zone conepts... seriously this is wat i would do after i see us getting drug up and down the field after two possesions..

''alright guys were going to man up cause zone isnt working, dunta grimes franks yall will man up and bump them at the LOS.. were going to take the middle of the field away, if jgrham is split out wide, then i want moore on him with spoon doubling. if sproles is lined up on the same side as grahm then we single graham with you moore and spoon you go get sproles... lofton, i want you zoned out inbetween the hashes, you dnt allow anything caught over the middlle, corners you DO NOT allow any inside release at all... make brees throw to the outside of the numbers to dunta and grimes...

if graham is not split out and in inline bliocking then i want decoud to come in the box man up on the RB and i want moore playing single high to let him roam... spoon, i want you man up on graham and make sure if he release from his inline stance to make sure he doenst get a clean one.. we force everything to the outside we will be fine'' lofton you stay partolling the intermediate middel, while we have one safety over the top in the middle, to force long throws to our most athletic guys on defense...

if we still cnt get a pass rush then we will send 6 guys, moore come off the edge on strong side, spoon you come off on the weak side, again, bump and dnt allow any inside release, lofton continue to zone off inbetween the hases and decoud you stay high... play agressive and FORCE them into a mistake...