Wide 9 and defending Adams

After reading most of the post and hearing all the talk about Adams I feel I must take his back.....If yyou look at the wide 9 he is really 2 gaps away from the LT...This is the design of th wide 9 to force everything inside....Adams did a good job getting out 2 extra Gaps witout any help....All the plays wher vanillia and right handed...As a result Amams was no=t only on a Island h was on 3 Islands by himself...

People take to much stock in the stats...Yes he did give up 2.5 sacks ,but the best LT in the NFL woulod have not faired much better against a wide 9 with no help from the scheme or the sets..

I have played against the wide 9 ,Coached against the wide 9,played D behind a wide 9.and Coached a Wide 9....The bottom line is it is a direct sheme and a wrinkle to force the game inside and give the 9 Tech. complete outside control...To hender that or to stiffle that control it must be done with the scheme.......As a Team we did not and I am sure that Coach K.,Haley,Adams and every other OL on the Team knows that....

Adams did a stellar job against a gut 2 zipcodes away.......The next game all will be talking about how great that Adams looked...As a guy who can read the tape he got beat by a half step at most and when the D slides in 2 and a half steps Adams will be a beast......

I knew before the game he would not look great against a wide 9 witout a gameplan,he looked better than I expected...So peeps can choose to be down on him and jump for joy next game,or you can simply skip all the Drama and understand the wide 9 and how it was not Adams ,but the scheme that got beat....And the scheme was beat on purpose thats for sure...Please believe the Coaches are really happy on the inside about Adams performance....

 

Good observation....I would also like to add that IMO Leftwich was responsible for the fumble more than Adams... Adams had forced his man behind Byron and was pushing him away when Byron's LONG SLOW and LOW throwing motion allowed the defender to reach for the ball and knock ot loose.

 

I don't think he's awful, but I find it humorous that anyone would say he was anything besides awful last night.

I am happy to believe that all his problems yesterday were due to inexperience, nerves, and just the fact that it was his first game ever. I want him to beat out Starks, and I think he can still do it. He has the talent. For a couple of his whiffs last night, it was like he just forgot to move his feet. He needs to get the hang of it, that's all. I don't know how many people are calling him a bust based off of last night. I'm not, but it was still an awful performance. That seems undeniable.

This is just insane. 2.5 sacks in one quarter. That's 10 sacks a game. But forget that. Suppose it was JUST 2.5 sacks for the whole game. That's acceptable? We should be chipping and double teaming every play? He didn't hold his blocks for awhile and then eventually succumb. It's not like Ben ran right into Mike's guy. He whiffed horribly, multiple times. But anyone would have done so against someone lining up that way? Crap.

Chipping, double teaming, letting Heath Miller and Mewelde Moore mop up after you... that's what you do when your OT stinks. That's what you do to make up for the fact that Jon Scott starts at LT. When your OT is good, he takes care of business on his own, and you don't sacrifice another player. I can't believe you don't expect a starting LT to be able to block one man on his own. And please read above before you accuse me of attacking Adams.

 

Hack do you understand the OL splits?
Do you realize how many more splits a wide 9 is out compared to a normal DE?
Adams got out there every time ,but the Wide 9 had the step as per the design of a wide 9....
Did he ever get beat with a TE to his side?
Did he ever get beat with a RB chipping to his side?
Did we run any of the anti wide 9 plays to help him?

I can post links and playbooks against a wide 9 ,and after you answer the quetions above and review the Info then as a smart Man that I am sure you are, I am sure you will conclude that no LT ever can defend against the wide 9 without help.....

 

So you guys who are blindly defending Adams are saying he wasn't properly prepared to face the 9 wide defense and that's why he did so poorly? Sounds like you're pinning the blame on the coaches then. Coach Kugler didn't bother to tell him about the eagles DL formation and show him how to adjust to it? None of the coaches mentioned it in the practices leading up to the game or on the sidelines during the game? I don't buy it. He's a rookie and made rookie mistakes. Simple as that. Hopefully he'll learn from the experience do better next time .... or we're in deep trouble. Or at least he's in deep trouble.

 

Wrong...I never said it was the Coaches fault...I did say the Coach did it on purpose...Coach T stated on Monaday I think that we have not game planned and we probably won't do to much of that,we just want to put them in a NFL stadium and see how they do...

So I am defending Adams because I know the wide 9 Tech very well,and as stated even if the Coach worked with him for 20 years he could not block a wide 9 without help from either the scheme or the personnel...

Wide 9 is very popular in N.C. WE have formed our own way to defeat the scheme...Make the blind side the strong side most of the time as a result the Wide 9 will line up outside the TE....So we line up TE then motion into a Nasty split...Meaning the TE just takes a huge step about 3 to 4 yards more out if the DE goes with him then we run into that natural hole to much room for the LB and Safety to cover...If the DE stays put then we wham block him with the TE and hit the corner....This is our base we have a couple of more runs we use to attack it and we have about 15 pass plays or so for each read as well.....Anyway 1 thing is for sure you can''t expect anyone to pass block a wide 9 without help....

 

i touched on this defending beachum a bit also from last night. he was left hung out to dry himself. a man lined up over him and a man lined up outside of him. the guard to the inside also had a man over him. beachum had the choice of the inside man which was the proper man for him to block and the outside rusher came untouched. yet the announcers said he just let his man run around him. no he didn't. if this O doesn't bring help to that side for him that's a bad play design to run against that defense. not beachums fault. he also ran his man back past the qb on another play and lefty instead of stepping up into the pocket as he should have stood there like a statue, allowing the rusher to throw a paw out there to knock the ball away. tecnique wise beachum did what he was supposed to do and again the announcers put it all on him. none of the linemen looked very good in pass protection, they did look much better in the run game as it should be at this stage. most of the pressure on ben came from the right side. gilbert struggled more than anyone.

 

I don't think it's blindly defending, when they've given you the tools and explanation on the why. I defer to you guys on this one. Billick does a great job explaining this as well in the Fox Sports Channel. (YouTube channel)

 

Are you talking to me? How did I get pulled into this?

HACK

 

Didn't I tell you? HugeSnack is too long to say, so I take out the "ugeSn" and just go by Hack.

HACK

 

Only preseason, we will get the wrinkles ironed out. Young players
are going to make mistakes both on offense and defense. The key is
if they LEARN from these mistakes.

 

Yeah Tunch was saying this was what was giving the Steelers O-line fits all game. The wide 9 makes it tough, especially if you didn't game plan for it to have any RB's or TE's chip or double team on blocks...

 

Snack, I have to agree with PWP on this one. He is right about the wide 9 defense. It is very hard to block as stated in the video, especially if you don't gameplan or scheme against it. Also, Adams is just a rookie, playing in his first nfl game. We couldn't possibly expect him to play great under those circumstances, especially at LT. I expected him to do just what he did in his first nfl game. Here is what I'm going to say. I bet he learns from this experience and gets better. I don't expect Starks to beat him out, infect, I don't want to see Starks on the field and Adams on the bench. Heck, Starks is not even ready and will not be ready by the start of the season. Essex is not the one, he had a bad game and he has experience.

Also, nobody talked about how bad Gilbert looked. He got beat repeatedly. For a guy who has a years experience under his belt, he looked bad. Not to mention that the Eagles D-Line is the strength of their defense.

I'm glad that Tomlin didn't gameplan against the Eagles this time. Whats going to happen is that when they play the real game in October when it counts at Heinz, the Steelers are going to beat them to death, I say 36-14. Adams will block them in this game and we will run all over them, BET!

One thing I could tell by watching the game is that the Steelers number 1's were better then the Eagles number 1's.

 

This is another reason why you will not see are Tight ends making pro bowls,
They are too busy blocking, because our OL has been so horrrible in the
recent past. We have two really good OL now, if we can get the others to play
at an acceptable level we will be alright. Watch out for our running game this year.(especially if Mendy
can get ready quickly))I 'll bet Mendy is watering at the mouth seeing Decastro and Pouncey able to get to the second level. I think it will open up so much more, than we will go over the top when those safties, CB's start cheating up to stop the run.

 

I'm speechless. I don't understand what's going on. My brain has never been this scrambled from reading a thread before...

[youtube:1bd197zo]Gdo3BP3m42I[/youtube:1bd197zo]

Is this miscommunication? Is that what's going on? I honestly try to be as clear as possible at all times, but I feel like this is just a huge cluster. NB seems to be taking a stance that he did not have a very good performance, but there are valid excuses for why. I think he might be understating the poor performance part a bit, but I don't necessarily disagree with that. TTF says that any OT is bound to struggle some against a wide 9. I don't necessarily disagree with that either. PWP seems to be taking the stance that no OT can be expected to block a DE from a wide 9, ever, and our dear Mike Adams did as well as anyone could do in such impossible circumstances. That seems clinically insane to me. I honestly can't tell, but I think maybe my stance is not getting across as clear as I can make it. So I will try harder. Here's what I think.

-Mike Adams is a rookie player that we knew had lots of talent but was probably not pro-ready and would need refinement.
-Mike Adams was playing in his very first NFL action ever, and mistakes -- even a crappy game -- were to be expected.
-Mike Adams was going against an unusual scheme that places more stress than normal on an OT in the pass rush.
-After considering alllllllllll that, and cutting him every break he deserves... Mike Adams still had a terrible game, beyond the acceptable level for a 2nd round rookie facing these conditions who wants to start.
-That's okay, and I'm not giving up on him, and I believe he'll get better, and I'm sure nerves/inexperience/scheme had a lot to do with it, but he still sucked in the game he played Thursday and I don't know why so many people are fighting that clear as day fact.

I get that the wide 9 makes it harder for him, and puts him on an island. But it's his job to perform on an island. In tough circumstances. That will be his job for as long as he's in the league. I also get that this is his first game. Pretend he was a cornerback. His first game, he's in single coverage, no safety, against a good quarterback. Fair enough comparison? Well yes, it's foolish to expect an OT to block a DE forever, or every time, just like it's foolish to expect a CB to cover a WR forever, or every time. Especially a rookie in his first game. But what Adams did wasn't the equivalent of sticking with the WR for as long as possible before finally and inevitably losing track of him. He didn't just allow a couple completions. It was more the equivalent of falling down at the line of scrimmage. He allowed two sack/fumbles in which the defender didn't really slow down or break stride. He didn't impede his progress. It was a failure to block, and it was below every reasonable standard, even for a rookie in his first game against a wide 9.

Some people have painted a picture of the DE sprinting off the edge, Adams moving as fast as he can to block him but being unable because of the alignment and pure speed of the DE -- beaten by the system and not getting the help even the best OTs need. No one could have gotten there. And Ben took a 10 step drop, so really it wasn't Adams' fault at all. The truth is Adams got off the ball and was in decent enough position every time. He just failed to block. On one of the sacks, Ben did get too deep, but he immediately stepped up and nothing changes the fact that he was hit 8 yards deep, not 10, and Adams failed to prevent the defender from practically taking a straight line to that spot, once again 8 yards deep. He even held the guy some and didn't really slow him down. That's a failure. On the Leftwich sack/fumble, he again simply watched instead of reacting when the DE ran right past him. That's not scheme, it's a failure to block. The DE also made a great play to knock the ball out, and it was very bad timing that Lefty happened to be throwing at that exact moment. I do give Mike props for staying with the play and recovering both fumbles. Then again, what OT would allow a sack/fumble and not even bother to try and... oh, right.

On the "half sack" he allowed, I agree that Ramon Foster was the main cause of the sack. He was beaten badly right off the bat, and his guy ran towards Mike, and Mike let him go because he was focused on his guy, who was not really rushing. That's fine. Some people might blame him for not picking up Ramon's guy and making the switch (I think SteelersDepot blamed them both for "not working well together"), but I don't. To me that is above what you can expect from a rookie in his first game. Let him worry about his own guy, not cleaning up for Ramon, right? And after looking at it a second time, Mike's guy was still looking like he was going to rush at the time, so you can't blame him for sticking with him. So then what happened was Ben got around Ramon's guy, Mike's guy ran to the middle to get Ben, and got the sack. Again, you could assign some blame to Mike for not doing a better job chasing him and pushing him out of the way, but that's a tough play to make, especially for a rookie. You don't expect your DE to take an angle like that, because your QB shouldn't be there (and only is because of Ramon)..... BUT we have people on here saying that he "pushed his man well into the middle of the field." No, he simply made a decent initial block (although it should be noted he was not really challenged, since the DE was doing a "wait and see" kind of rush, where he pushed off Adams, and then made a run to the middle on his own in order to get Ben -- and he did). I probably wouldn't even put that one on Mike even if he was a seasoned vet, but...

...We still don't need to go around making stuff up in order to make him look better. There's nothing wrong with the truth. And we don't need to flip out when people criticize him for stinking. He had a bad game, it was ugly, he missed his blocks. That's okay. It was his first time, and there's good news attached. His run blocking was great for a first timer, and he did have one or two decent pass blocks. And as far as I'm concerned the #1 problem he had with his whiffs was that he didn't move his feet to get in front of his man; he was in position, his man ran around him, and instead of shuffling out into better position to either stonewall him or push him past the pocket, he just reached his arms like a high school kid. Why is this good? It's correctable. We all know that he's not simply too slow to get out in time for the speed rushers. We know he has good movement and quick feet. He just didn't use them. He's also super tall with a long reach, which will help him with speed rushers in the future. He's still getting his feet wet, and if/when he finally gets the hang of it, which I believe he will, he should be great. If you ask me, it would have been far worse if he'd been physically abused via bullrush, or made to look clumbsy. Those would be more serious concerns, in my opinion, because they'd be harder to fix. But he didn't look weak or clumbsy. Just gun-shy. That's not so bad, but he did stink in that game. It's okay to admit it. It doesn't mean you have to love him any less.

 

I agree, his injury does way, way more harm to the likelihood of his starting week 1 than his performance. If he could have finished the half, and then played 3 more preseason games, plus all the practice in between, I think he might have pulled it off. But now I think the job is really up in the air... both guys are injured, we're unsure of when both will be back and what they'll be able to offer... I don't know who will get it.

I also agree with you, that anyone saying his performance meant anything was pretty much overreacting. There is still so much time for him to get it together (or there would be if he wasn't hurt). I just didn't understand some of the things I was reading about his performance, most of which were from PWP, but some other people chimed in too. Saying he played well, it was good considering the circumstances, Gilbert was worse, etc. Gilbert was bad, but if I swim my personal best in the 100 meter butterfly and Michael Phelps swims his worst in 10 years, that doesn't mean I did better than him... No matter what the expectations, Adams was far worse.

I want him to start as soon as he's the best LT on the team. I was hoping for week 1 and still am. If Starks can do a reasonable job, I can be patient. But I believe that unless it will do the team harm, it's fine to let a guy grow on the field.

 

Holy crap that was long...

Adams and Gilbert were repeatedly beat one on one no matter where the opponent came from or what scheme was employed to get them there. As an O lineman once your hands are on the opponent it's your job to make the block and play through it.

Bad is bad.

Both are young, lets hope they improve.

 

Well Snack we will have to disagree on this one....What I seen was a LT being asked to block a guy no LT can block 1 on 1 because of the scheme...If the LT gets all thw way out with his drop step then the DE has a straight swim move inside and again the LT can not stop it....Adams made the correct drop step got his hands on him and worked the DE up the field,on the ones the DE tried to rip and swim inside Adams took care of him...

Again thats good play against a Wide 9....The QB has to step up,or the LT has to have help from the scheme,the RB,the TE,or the LG....Adams got no help from any and thats the bottom line.....You did a comparison so I will do one.....Asking the LT to block a Wide 9 in that situation is like asking Pouncey to stop a fire X blitz by himself,or like blitzing 7 guys against a 5 WR set and wondering why guys are always open......

If the Tackle drops wide enough to cut off the wide 9 then he is now perpendicular to the LOS at which point any DE in the world can beat him to the inside,,,even 1 of my HS kids..Which is exactly why the tape shows that Adams played it correct given the circumstances...

 

Of course he can stop it. It's called being a good blocker and balancing all options. Inside, outside, bull rush. Stop it all. It's possible and most guys do it almost every single play.

I wouldn't say Adams "worked him up the field." I'd say it was more like the DE ran upfield of Adams, straight to the QB and tackled him and/or stole the ball, and Adams was located downfield of those events.

Alright, agree to disagree. I don't believe that just because the DE lines up in a certain place he becomes as hard to block as two people. You do. I also don't believe that "Don't worry coach, he can only get a sack on the ones where he goes to my left" is good enough. You do. I believe his job is to protect against moves to the inside, the outside, and right through him, when it's one on one. You don't.

At least now we can stop talking about it. Can't wait for him to get back, see him have a good performance, and then hear about how wrong I was.