Camp Buzz: Blitzing Drew Brees not a bad idea
 

Blitzing Drew Brees worked in 2011. This goes against conventional wisdom, but it's also undeniably true. According to the Football Outsiders' Almanac, Brees produced an NFL-high 8.3 yards-per-pass play when opponents rushed three or four defenders last year. The average dropped to 7.2 yards (still good) against five defenders, and down to 6.8 yards against a big blitz of six defenders or more.
This is not what we expected. It is not what opposing defensive coordinators expected either, or they would have blitzed more. No quarterback saw fewer "big blitzes" in the NFL than Brees. This is not a new trend either; Brees has been better against four rushers than a blitz for three years running.

(Aaron Rodgers, on the other hand, was more effective last year the more pass rushers you sent at him.)
These sort of surprising revelations are why Lions coach Jim Schwartz, Seahawks G.M. John Schneider, and other NFL personnel read the Football Outsiders Almanac. Anyone that loves football is going to learn a lot from it. A few other fun nuggets I learned:


Rest of the story:
Camp Buzz: Blitzing Drew Brees not a bad idea - NFL.com


Please blitz... Open up PT and Sproles in the screen.

Re: Camp Buzz: Blitzing Drew Brees not a bad idea
 

What the article misses on is if other teams did start blitzing more, Brees and Carmichael would adjust some things and you'd see Brees' success rate skyrocket.

Linear extrapolation applied to dynamic processes predictably fail.

We're 32-0 when we rush for 125 yards or more. So if we ran every single down in order to reach 125 yards we'd win right?

Re: Camp Buzz: Blitzing Drew Brees not a bad idea
 

... yep.. great idea to send 6 players all the time after a guy who completes over 70% of his passes for 6.8 yards a down.

Those geeks and their averages.

Re: Camp Buzz: Blitzing Drew Brees not a bad idea
 

SHH!!!

Re: Camp Buzz: Blitzing Drew Brees not a bad idea
 

I want them to send them, then the corners are 1 on 1 with our recievers, good odds to me.

Re: Camp Buzz: Blitzing Drew Brees not a bad idea
 

you so sexy when you talk all engineerin'n'stuff

Re: Camp Buzz: Blitzing Drew Brees not a bad idea
 

Xan?

:p

Re: Camp Buzz: Blitzing Drew Brees not a bad idea
 

Working against this defense might make Drew even better.

Re: Camp Buzz: Blitzing Drew Brees not a bad idea
 

It'll have him more adept at reading zone, that's for sure

Re: Camp Buzz: Blitzing Drew Brees not a bad idea
 

I asked Xan for help phrasing that comment.:p

He's a cunning linguist!