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Lions to be blitz happy?

by Detroitnavy

created July 15, 2009

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New Lions Defensive Coordinator, Gunther Cunningham, is set to have the Lions blitz on 40% of the team's defensive plays in the coming season. This is very troubling for any number of reasons.

The first being if the Lions are going to blitz this much, it seems that opposing Offensive Coordinators will have an easy time picking apart the weak Lions secondary. More than that though, the Lions are not good enough to blitz this much.

Think about it, who is going to blitz? Is Cunningham going to use one of his linebackers to blitz? The Linebacker corps may be the only strength on this defense and Cunningham is going to use one of them to go all blitz happy. Does that make any sense?

Call Cunningham a Defensive genius if you want, but this guy hasn't been good since a guy named Clinton was our President. Since 2004 he has been the head of a no name defense in KC and has done nothing with it. Last year with his blitz happy scheme the Chiefs managed only 10 sacks for the year. Along the way giving up 393 yards per game, and 27.5 points per game.

The sad thing about that is those numbers are better than what the 2008 Lions defense was able to produce, so in that way the Lions are better off. But let us be real for a minute, this team isn't good enough to blitz this much, the secondary is weak and this is a recipe for failure.

Yet this is the Standard Operating Procedure of the Detroit Lions. Do what ever, hire whomever, the Lions front office doesn't think their fans are smart enough to understand any of it anyway. The sad thing is they have a point, Every year Lions fans line up like sheep to buy season tickets and attend the Thanksgiving day game, regardless of what the Lions did in the off season to improve themselves. In Detroit the front office has no incentive to win.

Here is the best case scenario for the Lions, their ddefensive coordinator ran the second worst NFL defense in 2008, and their GM was the assistant to the guy who destroyed the franchise. Before that Martin Mayhew was in charge of Player/Personnel for the XFL. Apparently William Clay Ford Sr. would like to loose money on the scale of Vince McMahon and NBC Sports.

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Pittsburgh GunnyMajor Leaguer

138 days ago

Score 5

"In Detroit the front office has no incentive to win."

Now you know what it is like to be a fan of the Pittsburgh Pirates.

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CheezerAll-Star

138 days ago

Score 7

The key to blitzing is not the quantity of blitzes, it's the quality of blitzes. Do they come at unexpected times from unexpected directions? Or is the defense predictable?

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RawbeezeitzMajor Leaguer

137 days ago

Score 3

So true. If your blitzing is predictable, it's much more harmful to your defense then not blitzing at all.

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Pittsburgh GunnyMajor Leaguer

137 days ago

Score 2

Iteresting that the German word for lightning, blitz, is used for a defensive strategy in American football, I always wondered about that.

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CheezerAll-Star

137 days ago

Score 3

I believe it is based on the term for the "blitzkrieg" WWII strategy employed by the Nazis. The word has since been shortened to blitz

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Steel TownDraft Pick

137 days ago

Score 3

Gunny, that's because a blitz leaves the defensive backfield "shorthanded". So, the Blitz must work quickly or it will probably backfire.

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Pittsburgh GunnyMajor Leaguer

137 days ago

Score 1

So a blitz must be utilized as more of a surprise tactic otherwise the defenders could be left vulnerable if I understand correctly ST.

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RawbeezeitzMajor Leaguer

137 days ago

Score 2

I think it does come from blitzkrieg which is meant to bypass strong enemy defenses and concentrate on weaknesses, creating numerical advantages in specific sectors (like sending 100 tanks to attack a group of 10 tanks or rushing 5 men against 3 blockers) despite not having overall numerical superiority. In 1940 France, the Germans surpassed and bypassed the British and French strongpoints, and caused ruckus in the rear, and forced the British to evacuate at Dunkirk (get rid of the ball early), and forcing the French to surrender (take a sack). The French and British actually had more and better tanks than the Germans, but the Germans concentrated their armor, using blitzkrieg to exploit the more dispersed Allied units.

But if it can be anticipated (a major problem with overblitzing), then you can get quality WRs on islands with one-on-one coverage, or also throw tons of screen passes into areas normally zone covered by LBs. In the Battle of the Bulge, the US used orderly withdrawals, and held onto key points like Bastogne, allowing the Germans to push forward too far in a salient, vulnerable to attack from 3 directions which also had overextended supply lines (the Bulge withdrawal and subsequent counter attack was the ultimate screen pass).

I love football and I love history.

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Pittsburgh GunnyMajor Leaguer

137 days ago

Score 4

Thanks Rawb for the explanation, oh, and I love beer, not that that has anything whatsoever to do with this conversation.

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RawbeezeitzMajor Leaguer

137 days ago

Score 1

Also, the names of Santa reindeer Donner and Blitzen come from the German words for thunder and lightning.

Insert Dwight Schrute joke.