Why blitz your LBs?

[Passacaglia]

In the latest patch, it seems like it's harder for linebackers to get sacks then it had been. I know there's been more than one thread about trying to get your LBs more sacks, but what about the alternative -- giving up? It seems to me that if your LBs are not going to get many sacks, you might as well drop them back into pass coverage. Has anyone experimented with this at all, and if so, has it made your defense significantly better?

[PackerFanatic]

I might have to try this and see...

[MrBigglesworth]

I find that I am more likely to get sacks and hurries on passes that I am blitzing on, even if it's not from the LB's.

[Warhammer]

In both of my leagues I have one of the top 5 passing defenses (at last check). In one I have the top overall defense in Yards Allowed. I run a 3-4 in both leagues, and to make it work you have to bump your blitz % way up to get an adequate pass rush.

I also tweak some other settings, and in at least one of the leagues, I am near the top in sack totals. However, if I drop the blitz %s, my overall sacks fall way off.

[duckman]

Your LB's will need strong coverage skills for them to be able to blanket the field if you don't blitz regularly.

[MIJB#19]

Your LB's will need strong coverage skills for them to be able to blanket the field if you don't blitz regularly.Here's the main problem, the game engine doesn't create LBs who are good, let alone very good or excellent in man2man or zone defense, but it does create pass rushers. The only pass coverage LBs get is bump and run.

In the IHOF I tried a zone defense heavy system and SLB used to be the weak spot until I was lucky enough to see a rookie WLB have a post-draft boom into the second best zone defender amongst OLBs in potential and I started him from the season start at SLB to cover TE's and/or RBs. The kid recorded 4 ints, 10 defended passes while allowing 31 catches and 3 fumble recoveries, despite playing on only about 60% of the defensive plays. Note that he played much better when I played about 50-50 in 2- and 3-deep; when I ran just 2-deep he didn't recorded defended passes anymore and instead allowed catches on those plays.

[Passacaglia]

Here's the main problem, the game engine doesn't create LBs who are good, let alone very good or excellent in man2man or zone defense, but it does create pass rushers. The only pass coverage LBs get is bump and run.



That's fine with me -- I run B&R all the time, so I bring in LBs who have skills there. I wonder even if they do have PR skills, will they do me as much good blitzing as their B&R skills will do sitting back?

[PackerFanatic]

My LBs seem to be pretty even with both. They probably won't get as many sacks as they used to, but they still can rush the passer well enough for my tastes.

[jeff061]

The couple seasons I had real good pass defense, top-5 I believe, I had 0% blitzing.

Now, I had really good zone coverage from my LB's and secondary(I played all zone) and a good pass rushing line. I figured I'd let my LBs stay back in the zone and let my line pressure, worked out well.

I don't have the line I used to so I'm bumping up my blitzes a bit, didn't work so well the first try though.

[QuikSand]

I wonder if anyone has committed time to really trying this out as a sort of experiment, rather than just the all-too-common "thought experiment." As we know, success by a given team (especially in single player) using a certain strategy does not necessarily amount to an endirsement of that strategy. If I can create a dominant championship team from nothing but undrafted rookies, that doesn't necessarily mean that this is the best way,[ nor even a good way to build a team in FOF. Just that it can be done.

Seems that a fair experiment might be to take the same team, and run the season several times with different levels of blitzing -- and see what happens. Sure, I'd guess that the team blitzing would get more pass rush from its DL as well as its LBs, but that's just my "thought experiment" that I haven't really tried out in the game, it just makes sense to me that it would work that way. I don't think the original question was "what makes sense to you?" but rather "how does the game actually work?"