Break it Down: Rob Ryan's big blitzes

key Saints' defensive revival

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DOUG FARRAR
Wednesday October 9th, 2013

Rob Ryan has linebacker Curtis Lofton and his teammates smiling every week. Opposing
offenses are not so happy. (Stacy Revere/Getty Images)

When the New Orleans Saints hired Rob Ryan to be their new defensive coordinator
after Steve Spagnuolo led a 2012 New Orleans defense that set an NFL record for
yards allowed, the general consensus was that hey -- at least things couldn't get any
worse. Ryan, after all, had been dismissed by Jerry Jones as Dallas' defensive
coordinator after drawing things up for a unit that ranked 23rd in Football Outsiders'
opponent-adjusted defensive metrics. Throughout his history as a schemer for the
Oakland Raiders, Cleveland Browns, and Cowboys, Ryan had tried to balance as
many line combinations and coverage concepts as any defensive coordinator in the
league -- including twin brother Rex. In Dallas, Ryan's tendency to alternate between
all-in blitzes and major coverage clusters apparently did more to confuse his charges
than anything else -- or, at least, that's what Jones said when Ryan was canned in
January -- there were too many schemes on the field, and the 'Boys needed to "skinny
it down."

Undeterred, Ryan took his big-ass playbook to the Crescent City and opened things
up in a different way.

Th
e Saints bedeviled Jay Cutler with complicated safety blitzes last Sunday. (Stacy
Revere/Getty Images)

Through five games, the Saints are undefeated and quite possibly the NFC's best
team. And that's as much to do with their defense as it is the always-combustible
offense led by Drew Brees and Sean Payton. New Orleans ranks fourth in points
allowed, and 11th in yards allowed. Ryan has made a star out of end Cameron Jordan ,
advanced the profiles of previously unheralded players such as pass-rusher Junior
Galette , and has put rookie safety Kenny Vaccaro in about as many spots as you can
without drawing penalty flags. The primary issue with Ryan's blitzes before seemed
to be that he left his defensive backs on islands they weren't prepared to inhabit --
but he's doing some very cool and different things now when he brings the house.

The Chicago Bears got a good look at this last Sunday at Soldier Field, and they didn't
like it. Bears quarterback Jay Cutler threw for 358 yards and two touchdowns, but
Chicago could get nothing going with its running game, and the Saints took the game,
26-18. Cutler was sacked three times, and the first two sacks revealed some
interesting tendencies regarding Ryan's ability to show similar blitz looks and do
totally different things after the snap.

I think they were problematic," Bears head coach March Trestman said of Ryan's
pressures. "We hadnt really seen them. I thought Rob did a good job. We had
answers for them early, we just didnt get it communicated it to the guys. Once we
did, I think you see we efficiently moved the football up and down the field. Our guys
did a good job of making that transition. I dont know if all of them were the same
ones. I think two of them were the same, one was a little different. So they got us
early. But I was pleased we were able to make the adjustments. I would have liked to
make them sooner."

The Saints played what was essentially a 3-3-5 base defense -- they played so much
nickel that third-year safety Rafael Bush was listed as "NB" -- a starting nickel back.
You don't see that too often. Ryan moves his linebackers in and around the front to
make it look like a 4-2-5, but you'll see a lot of weird stuff when you study this
defense.

The first blitz-to-sack came with 7:38 left in the first quarter. The Bears had first-
and-10 at their own 20-yard line, and had lineman Eben Britton (62) in as a sixth
blocker upfront. Ryan responded by putting both his starting safeties -- Vaccaro
and Malcolm Jenkins -- in a blitz look at the line just outside left tackle Jermon
Bushrod, Bush patrolled the deep middle. Jenkins was head-up on receiver Earl
Bennett, who was in a stack formation to the left in front of Brandon Marshall . He
wasn't covering Bennett or Marshall, though -- at the snap, both Vaccaro and Jenkins
took off straight for Cutler's blind side. Bennett and Marshall were covered in their
routes because linebacker Curtis Lofton veered over to the seam to help
cornerback Jabari Greer on that side. Meanwhile, linebacker Ramon Humber peeled
off from his position outside Britton and right tackle Jordan Mills to help
cornerback Keenan Lewis cover Alshon Jeffery on the offensive right side. Running
back Matt Forte ran a quick route right up the middle and wasn't available to help
with the pressure. The first screencap shows New Orleans' coverage, and the second
shows that Jenkins had a free release to Cutler.

Jankins had that free release because Bushrod extended out to deal with Vaccaro,
while left guard Matt Slauson and center Roberto Garza blocked Galette, who stunted
inside Bushrod's gap. Jenkins forced a fumble that was recovered by Cam Jordan,
who had been taking a double team from Mills and Britton. The Bears thought they
had the protection dialed up -- they even had extra protection -- but Ryan exploited a
weakness on the blind side, and his coverages insured that Cutler couldn't break off
to an easy read.
The second sack came on the next Bears drive, with 3:59 left in the first quarter.
Chicago had second-and-10 at its own 34-yard line, and this time, Ryan put Vacarro
and Jenkins on the other side of the formation with the same kind of blitz look. The
Bears responded with five receivers -- a stack to the left with Forte and Bennett, and
trips right. This time, Vaccaro and Jenkins were stacked over trips, and they didn't
blitz at the snap -- they took off into coverage.
This time, the play worked because Humber rushed outside to take Bushrod out of
the play, while Galette looped inside Slauson, taking Slauson to his right. This left a
huge gap for linebacker David Hawthorne , who blitzed from the weak side and came
through completely unblocked for the sack. Nose tackle John Jenkins -- all 359
pounds of him -- had Garza and right guard Kyle Long occupied, while Mills blocked
Jordan after he was chipped by tight end Martellus Bennett.

Its not really an inability to communicate, its just seeing a front we hadnt worked
on," Trestman said. "As a young line, as a new line, just being able to make the
conversion into delineating who the line blocks and who the backs block in that
particular play. We got it cleaned up and did well throughout the rest of the game. I
thought the guys kept Jay very clean during the course of the game.

Well, not quite. Ryan sent Vaccaro and Jenkins from the defensive right side early in
the second quarter, and this time, Vaccaro came through clean for the sack. That led
to a Chicago third-and-17 in which Ryan backed five of his defenders about 15 yards
off the line of scrimmage, had a safety behind them, and had one down lineman at
the snap. One 12-yard pass to Forte later, the Bears were punting.
New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick will be the next guy to deal with
Ryan's blitzes when the Saints travel to Gillette Stadium this Sunday.

"Id say last year they were a really heavy blitz and zone team and they gave up a lot
of big plays," Belichick said of the Saints on Tuesday. "I would say this year under
Rob, they havent given up very many big plays. Id say one of the characteristics of
their defense is that they play a lot of multiple defensive packages that vary from
week to week, similar to what Rex does, or has done at New York, at times. They
might play nickel, but one week its one version of nickel and another week, its
another version of nickel. Theyll play dime and theyll play seven DBs but the players
dont necessarily all play in the same spots, theyll move them around by game plan
and by matchups and by the type of plays or calls that they want to run.

"Last week was probably a good example, where they came out in kind of a new-look,
nickel look against the Bears and sacked [Cutler] in the first couple series. They got a
strip-sack and a turnover on a couple, it looked like, protection errors that the Bears
had on a couple of their blitzes ... they really kept Chicago from getting into much of
rhythm in the game for the better part of the first half, just because of the way it
started.

"You have to be ready for something different. The way they deploy can change quite
a bit from a game-to-game matchup basis. They played a lot of 3-4 defense early in
the preseason, and thats certainly their base, similar to what he did in Dallas, but the
actual number of snaps that theyve played during the regular season this year has
been a far lower percentage."

Belichick last faced a Rob Ryan defense on Oct. 16, 2011, when the Pats beat the
Cowboys. 20-16. Ryan did what he always does when he faces New England -- he
brought as many different fronts as possible, and delayed the position of his potential
pass-rushers until the last possible second. This gave Tom Brady pause in processing
his reads, and Brady was sacked twice and intercepted once in the first quarter.

It
took a while for Tom Brady to adjust to Rob Ryan's pressure concepts in 2011. (Jim
Rogash/Getty Images)

In the second quarter, however, Brady performed a checkmate by going no-huddle on

every possible offensive play. This forced the Cowboys to stay in their base defense to
avoid mismatches against the run, and New England scored 10 points on 20 plays.
"You just cant count on [Ryan] to blitz every play, because thats not going to
happen," Belichick concluded. "But there are times when theyll three-man rush,
there are times when theyll send the house and things inbetween. Theyre not just
the type of defense thats going to sit in one or two things and do that all day unless
on that particular play it really happens to be working well and youre having a hard
time with it." Forcing Rob Ryan to adjust? That's the idea, but with the personnel he
has in New Orleans, that seems to be a more difficult task than ever. We'll see if the
Patriots can do what other offenses have not this season.