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Remember last season, when we kept complaining that the Tampa Bay Buccaneers ruined good rush opportunities with poorly designed and poorly executed blitzes and stunts? Well, that didn't change against the Baltimore Ravens. We saw stunts everywhere, and a number of blitzes as well.
Two of those blitzes hit home, at least, and they didn't look too bad. But the stunts were as torturous as ever. Which set off former Buccaneers defensive lineman Steve White on Twitter, who's been complaining about this stuff for, well, as long as I can remember, really.
I just thought I'd copy his rant, because it's both enlightening and very entertaining. It's also not very safe for work, so there's that.
Good Morning. Why in the fck are the Bucs still running this line stunt? http://t.co/GvDSBKUjAC Who in the hell kept this in the playbook?!
— Stephen White (@sgw94) August 10, 2013
Saw it last night and felt a headache coming on. Just watched it again and started seeing red.
— Stephen White (@sgw94) August 10, 2013
Oh, to make it even better they ALSO ran a compliment to that line stunt this time with 3 tech hitting B to C, nose going opposite A and DE
— Stephen White (@sgw94) August 10, 2013
Wrapping all the way around to opposite A or perhaps opposite B gap. There's high school DCs who wouldnt call that shit.
— Stephen White (@sgw94) August 10, 2013
I try my best to be as fair as possible when critiquing any team and especially my Bucs but im going to have a meltdown over this. Seriously
— Stephen White (@sgw94) August 10, 2013
http://t.co/D14LzXqMm0 RT @Adam_Jacobi: @sgw94 That’s three linemen crossing six faces. How could that possibly fail???
— Stephen White (@sgw94) August 10, 2013
@ImThatRealMF thing is Im cool with line stunts as long as they make sense. Cant call them all the time but they can help. Not that crap tho
— Stephen White (@sgw94) August 10, 2013
@InTheBleachers bruh its not a laughing matter anymore. Theyre gonna give me a stroke with this crap
— Stephen White (@sgw94) August 10, 2013
@InTheBleachers see that was me last year. But this is year two and theyre still doing it smdh
— Stephen White (@sgw94) August 10, 2013
Nope, just two of them RT @Bucs_Nation: I think @sgw94 is angry about these defensive line stunts
— Stephen White (@sgw94) August 10, 2013
Here's what it looks like in a picture, from Steve White's post one year ago. Yes, one year ago.
Here's what he wrote about that specific stunt a year ago (go read the whole post, it's enlightening), when the Buccaneers ran it against the New York Giants with no success:
1. It simply takes too long. For McCoy to get to the quarterback or to at least contain the quarterback, he has to loop around three gaps and four players. If the quarterback still has the ball at that point it would probably be a miracle. The only real chance for pressure would be if McCoy and or Bennett beat their men clean and got penetration toward the quarterback. Which leads me to the second reason why I don't like the stunt.
2. When a NFL team is in the shotgun on offense and the back is offset to one side the center usually slides in the opposite direction of the offset back against a 4-3 defense. Because we know this we know the center should slide to Miller which in theory could help him as he tries to make it to the opposite A gap. However as soon as McCoy goes to loop around his guard is going to come with him and end up slamming right into Miller as he did on this play. So now the center and guard are double teaming Miller so his prospects for getting penetration reduce drastically.
Does this sound familiar? It sounds familiar to me.
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