DeAngelo Hall came one play; Justin Tryon another. Then it was Carlos Rogers’ turn. And Reed Doughty. And LaRon Landry. When Greg Blache promised a new, more aggressive attitude Sunday, he delivered by blitzing these five defensive backs at various times.
The Redskins often have blitzed their safeties, but sending so many corner blitzes was new for Blache.
“The Jets get away with it every week, why can’t we?” Redskins secondary coach Jerry Gray said of the corner blitz in particular. “[But] every team won’t give you the opportunity to do that.”
It worked Sunday as Tryon recorded a sack and Landry a tackle for a loss.
The Redskins had picked up a tip as to when the Bucs would snap the ball. On one blitz, Doughty inched up as the center’s head went down. A second later, he picked it up and snapped the ball with Doughty getting a head start to the quarterback.
The corners went at the snap, having a lane created when the ends and tackles both rushed inside.
“If you know the corner blitz is coming, the quarterback is doing this [shifting his eyes],” Redskins coach Jim Zorn, a former quarterback, said. “It makes the quarterback a little uncomfortable.”
And it creates a mindset, and a competition, among the defensive backs. It also makes the defense tougher to decipher and predict.
“Now you have to look at the whole field and say it’s not just one guy in the secondary they can blitz,” Gray said.
Also, when defensive backs blitz, Gray said, they have more urgency to arrive in a hurry because they know the trouble it causes downfield if they don’t.
Tryon is considered one of the better blitzers (along with Landry and Doughty).
“[Tryon] brings that mentality of special teams to defense,” Gray said. “[Now] you’ve brought in a guy who has reckless abandon to go and make plays. Justin could have blitzed and when the quarterback scrambled away, but he accelerated and didn’t slow down until he got his hands on him. That’s the mentality they teach on special teams. It carries over.”
