quote:
No, the biggest thing that would level the playing field and it's been discussed ad nauseum is to adopt the NFL OL downfield rule. They can go downfield ONE yard on pass plays. Beyond that, it's a penalty. Part two of that is ENFORCE it! Gus and people like him can bitch all they want but the defense is playing with one hand tied behind their back if they can't read run or pass based on blocking technique. A guy blocking you 3 yards (and beyond because it's not called) downfield on a pass play is just unfair.

Yep. This is the real answer. The 3-yard rule is absurdly offensive-biased.

There is no way for defenders in the front 7 to diagnose run/pass by reading keys on the OL if the OL is allowed to go 3-yards downfield. The entire RPO concept is playing off the defenders' reads in that time frame.

Personnel issues aside, this is the biggest reason for our drop-off in run defense, IMO. Because all the LBs can do is play the pass until the ball is actually out of the QB's hands. At that point, the OL is already to the 2nd level, and it's a 3-5 yard gain before the LBs are even in the play unless the DL can shake their blocks.

We put up dominant run defenses the last decade by having our DL play a gap scheme to occupy blockers, allowing the playside LB to diagnose his keys to fill the hole and the backside LB to scrape down the line behind him. The RPO has delayed the reads long enough to prevent the LBs from being able to do that before the OL is already on them.

This post was edited on 9/15/20 at 12:48 pm