The Broncos used the chop block on their zone reads. Hampton hated it as did I. It should be illegal to hit a lineman below the waist. Especially when he is engaged with another blocker. I think they changed that part of it.
Somewhat Vader. They did change the enforcement of "chop blocks" on pass plays where a defender is either engaged (or lured) to think he is engaged. He cannot be chopped by a second player below the waist. HOWEVER, the rules regarding chop blocks on running plays still stand as long as the offensive player is only ONE position away from the person engaged in blocking the defender. Which means it's still ok for the Center to engage a DL high and have the G come in from the side and take out his knees. (This is what Snack hated)
I agree with tape that our DL and ILBs are being asked to try to create more pressure because we aren't getting it from our OLBs.
If you watch the individual plays, we aren't getting blown off the ball, IMO. Our DL is moving well laterally towards the hand-off (or fake) and instead of the ILBs being free to monitor the cut-backs, they too are shooting towards the play/fake side. This works great when the ball carrier stays in the same direction BUT if he cuts back OR if the whole design was to get our defense moving in that direction, the cut-back or short pass in the opposite direction will kill us.
That's what Philly did to us and what the Browns did as well. They had success with it in the first half too and just called more of the same in the 2nd half while dialing up the speed of the offense at the same time (ala Philly). It worked.
Lebeau typically doesn't like his defense to play aggressive (allows too many big plays) but asks them to play "sound", with gap integrity. Troy bouncing all over the place along the line makes it even worse. He never used to do this unless we had short-yardage situations where he would do his Super Fly Jimmy Suka impressions occasionally.
They need to stop worrying about 2-yard losses and allow some 2 yard gains, IMO. We don't need penetration on "movement" we need it where the BALL is. Otherwise we run our entire D (minus the lone S) out of the play.
