Winning with four
In my eyes, the Broncos had two ways to go about defending Ben Roethlisberger on Sunday: (1) Blitz the crap out of him, test his health and force him to succeed under duress or (2) lay off, rush with just four and let your secondary stifle any and all passing lanes.
Wade Phillips and his defense went with option two, and I guess you’d have to say it worked. I mean, they won.
Of the 40 times the Steelers dropped back to pass, Denver only blitzed nine times (23 percent of the time). Compare that to the last time the Broncos and Steelers faced off, where Denver blitzed on 33 of 58 passing plays (57 percent).
And while the Broncos only got three sacks on the day, they combined for a total of 20 quarterback hurries, almost all of which came from Denver’s front four; that’s evidenced by PFF’s grades, which had Von Miller (4.3), Derek Wolfe (3.3), DeMarcus Ware (3.3), Sylvester Williams (2.5) and Malik Jackson (2.4) as Denver’s top-five defense players.
It’ll be interesting to see what Denver does next week against New England. The last time they faced off, Denver blitzed Tom Brady on 36 percent of his drop backs, but they’ll need to get to him on Sunday if they want to have any chance of slowing down the Patriots offense.
We’ve seen throughout the years that the best way to stop Tom Brady is to pressure him, and pressure him quickly; it’s more true today than ever before. With guys like Julian Edelman, Danny Amendola and Rob Gronkowski dominating the middle of the field with short, quick routes, Brady is getting the ball out faster than just about anybody. If he’s not pressured, there’s no stopping him.
