Things Gleaned from Frank Bush Chat.

[dalemurphy]

1. Base defense will show more pressure. The DBs, especially CBs, will consistantly line up closer to the LOS.

2. Defensive philosophy will generally be willing to risk a big play in order to attempt to make one.

3. Effort will be put into unpredictability. as he put it, analyzing how the other teams see and react to us, and trying to stay ahead of the curve.

4. Defense will play a mix of man and zone coverages and attempt to disguise the coverages... I realize that Richard Smith said similar things. However, he believed in showing a balanced, 2 deep defense at the snap and then running different things off of that. Unfortunately, that philosophy neccessarily limited us a great deal. The DBs were always deep. So, DB blitzes were either telegraphed or unrealistic. Rarely did our pre-snap look require the QB to make any quick decisions or force any action. According to Bush, there will be more players consistantly at or near the LOS. This, in itself, creates pressure on linemen and the QB before the snap, and opens up a lot of variables as to what scheme will be employed at the snap.

5. He acknowledged that the DL will play less 2-gap than it did last year.

[CloakNNNdagger]

Originally Posted by dalemurphy

1. Base defense will show more pressure. The DBs, especially CBs, will consistantly line up closer to the LOS.

2. Defensive philosophy will generally be willing to risk a big play in order to attempt to make one.

3. Effort will be put into unpredictability. as he put it, analyzing how the other teams see and react to us, and trying to stay ahead of the curve.

4. Defense will play a mix of man and zone coverages and attempt to disguise the coverages... I realize that Richard Smith said similar things. However, he believed in showing a balanced, 2 deep defense at the snap and then running different things off of that. Unfortunately, that philosophy neccessarily limited us a great deal. The DBs were always deep. So, DB blitzes were either telegraphed or unrealistic. Rarely did our pre-snap look require the QB to make any quick decisions or force any action. According to Bush, there will be more players consistantly at or near the LOS. This, in itself, creates pressure on linemen and the QB before the snap, and opens up a lot of variables as to what scheme will be employed at the snap.

5. He acknowledged that the DL will play less 2-gap than it did last year.

I like the philosophy. But then we better get serious about getting better at shoring up our CB and safety play, or we'll be playing catch up most of the game. Bush's anticipated scheme is very dependent on the talent level. If your're trying to disguise plays, you have to have personell that are half way descent at both run defense as well as dropping back into coverage.

[infantrycak]

Tangential trivia and I haven't checked this to confirm it, but on HT.com there was an interesting stat. I guess during this Cutler melodrama someone pulled that Cutler was 12-1 when the D gave up 21 points or less. The poster's interest was piqued so he checked Schaub and found him to be 10-0 when the D gave up 21 points or less.

[dalemurphy]

Originally Posted by CloakNNNdagger

I like the philosophy. But then we better get serious about getting better at shoring up our CB and safety play, or we'll be playing catch up most of the game. Bush's anticipated scheme is very dependent on the talent level. If your're trying to disguise plays, you have to have personell that are half way descent at both run defense as well as dropping back into coverage.

I hear what you're saying, but I've always thought of the soft and safe defense that's designed to protect poor personnel as a slow death. Sure, it can give you a chance to win against teams that self destruct on offense. But against good offenses, it just enables them to control the ball and limit your offensive posessions.

While I certainly think our safety talent needs to be upgraded, at least an agressive defense will create some turnovers and make some 3rd down stops. Perhaps it gives up more plays and maybe even a few more points, if it also gives the ball to the offense in advantageous situations and if the offense gets 12 posessions per game instead of 10, then we're going to win more games!

[steelbtexan]

I agree with this philosopy.

If we had blitzed Garrard with earlier in the Jacksonville game one of two things would have happened

1. We would've stopped Garrard on 4th & 6 and won the game.
or
2. Garrard would've made a big play and the Jags would've scored sooner leaving Schaub more time on the clock to try to score a game winning TD instead of the game tying FG that sent the game into OT. We never saw the ball again because shockingly the Jags sliced like a knife through hot butter through our defense to a game winning score.

[dalemurphy]

Originally Posted by steelbtexan

I agree with this philosopy.

If we had blitzed Garrard with earlier in the Jacksonville game one of two things would have happened

1. We would've stopped Garrard on 4th & 6 and won the game.
or
2. Garrard would've made a big play and the Jags would've scored sooner leaving Schaub more time on the clock to try to score a game winning TD instead of the game tying FG that sent the game into OT. We never saw the ball again because shockingly the Jags sliced like a knife through hot butter through our defense to a game winning score.

I'm in total agreement with you. I've been arguing for a year how little sense it makes to lay back on defense and allow an offense to dictate everything. There are so many examples of how our defensive philosophy was committed to losing gracefully:

1. Jacksonville
2. At Indy- we were killing them on offense but defensively just sat on our butts and allowed them to control the clock and drive for the score to put us away. Meanwhile, Mario had their LT curled up in the fetal position most of that game but we did nothing as a defense to create opportunities for him and the Defensive front as a whole to make a play.
3. at Tennessee- despite their inability to throw the ball downfield, we sat back and got dinked, dunked, and eventually run over.
4. at Oakland- let's see. how can a defense make a 2nd year mess of a QB look good? Oh yeah, vanilla defense, predictable coverages and plenty of time to throw.

[barrett]

Originally Posted by infantrycak

Tangential trivia and I haven't checked this to confirm it, but on HT.com there was an interesting stat. I guess during this Cutler melodrama someone pulled that Cutler was 12-1 when the D gave up 21 points or less. The poster's interest was piqued so he checked Schaub and found him to be 10-0 when the D gave up 21 points or less.

Very nice.

[badboy]

Originally Posted by dalemurphy

1. Base defense will show more pressure. The DBs, especially CBs, will consistantly line up closer to the LOS.

2. Defensive philosophy will generally be willing to risk a big play in order to attempt to make one.

3. Effort will be put into unpredictability. as he put it, analyzing how the other teams see and react to us, and trying to stay ahead of the curve.

4. Defense will play a mix of man and zone coverages and attempt to disguise the coverages... I realize that Richard Smith said similar things. However, he believed in showing a balanced, 2 deep defense at the snap and then running different things off of that. Unfortunately, that philosophy neccessarily limited us a great deal. The DBs were always deep. So, DB blitzes were either telegraphed or unrealistic. Rarely did our pre-snap look require the QB to make any quick decisions or force any action. According to Bush, there will be more players consistantly at or near the LOS. This, in itself, creates pressure on linemen and the QB before the snap, and opens up a lot of variables as to what scheme will be employed at the snap.

5. He acknowledged that the DL will play less 2-gap than it did last year.

I agree & have pointed out that Reeves is fast and Dunta should be closer to 100%. Both can turn and run with the W/R. Bennett's progrees seemed to slow when Dunta his mentor went off the field. Bennett is very fast and can also turn and run but is very strong up close to LOS.
http://www.warroomreport.com/draft/r...cb/bennett.htm I don't think Reeves can play against run very well but he will take his W/R out of the play. Eugene Wilson should start again at FS unless we somehow get Jenkins. I have Rashad Johnson FS in 3rd round and he could just maybe beat out Wilson. This kid is fast and smart.

I am hopeful that Antonio Smith will cause some disruption and just maybe Raji will be there at #15. He would make the entire defense look much better.

[Big Lou]

The more I look at the past season, the more it looks like the better performances were attributed to Bush. The games the D were strong in I saw a lot of what Frank talked about in this chat. I think the late season games excluding Oakland were his audition even though he was Kube's first choice originally.

The games when our CB's were on the line we kicked ass, and were aggressive. When we were 10 yards off the line we sucked like in Oakland. I think Oakland was Smith's last chance to prove his philosophy against a crappy team that Kubiak thought we could win either way.

I know this is a lot of speculation on my part and maybe I'm just trying to be a glass half empty kind of guy regarding Frank Bush.

But either way late in the season I could tell you if we were going to win or lose 1 series into the Defesnse bieng on the field. CB's on the line, a W, 10 yards off, a slash in the L column!!!!!!!

[76Texan]

Originally Posted by infantrycak

Tangential trivia and I haven't checked this to confirm it, but on HT.com there was an interesting stat. I guess during this Cutler melodrama someone pulled that Cutler was 12-1 when the D gave up 21 points or less. The poster's interest was piqued so he checked Schaub and found him to be 10-0 when the D gave up 21 points or less.

The number ten is incorrect. But it's true that the Texans were undefeated when they allowed 21 points or loss in the last two years.
Schaub went 8-0, Rosenfels 5-0.

But the Texans were like 3-11 when they score 21 points or fewer, so the offense isn't off the hook by any mean.
11 games were with MS as starter and 3 games with Rosenfels.

[Texans_Chick]

Originally Posted by infantrycak

Tangential trivia and I haven't checked this to confirm it, but on HT.com there was an interesting stat. I guess during this Cutler melodrama someone pulled that Cutler was 12-1 when the D gave up 21 points or less. The poster's interest was piqued so he checked Schaub and found him to be 10-0 when the D gave up 21 points or less.

I thought about this some, and wrote this up:

What is Matt Schaub's 'Cutler Number?'

Interesting link in the blog post to some all time QB numbers relative to defensive points allowed.

[Lucky]

Originally Posted by Texans_Chick

I thought about this some, and wrote this up:

What is Matt Schaub's 'Cutler Number?'

From the link above:

I quickly eyeballed Schaub's game starts with the Texans and came up with this breakdown (I cannot assure they are accurate because I looked at this when I was tired--no more coffee in the afternoon):

Defense allows 16-20:1-0
Defense allows 21-25 3-0

To be accurate, I think you would have to use the term "Opposition scores". Because I can think of 3 games in which Schaub started and the defense "allowed" points in these ranges. @ the Titans (defense allowed 24). @ the Jags (defense allowed 23). @ the Raiders (defense allows 20).

Here's the flip side argument. The Texans are 8-1 when Schaub plays the entire game, and the offense scores 20+. So all the Texans need to do is keep Schaub on the field, score a measly 20 points, and they're headed to a AFC South crown.

The truth is that the Texans allowed too many points when facing good teams and didn't score enough against good teams. Their average score versus '08 playoff teams was 20-31. The Texans were -14 in turnovers against these teams. Those are the stats that have to be turned around for the Texans to be considered a good team.

[dalemurphy]

Originally Posted by Lucky

From the link above:


To be accurate, I think you would have to use the term "Opposition scores". Because I can think of 3 games in which Schaub started and the defense "allowed" points in these ranges. @ the Titans (defense allowed 24). @ the Jags (defense allowed 23). @ the Raiders (defense allows 20).

Here's the flip side argument. The Texans are 8-1 when Schaub plays the entire game, and the offense scores 20+. So all the Texans need to do is keep Schaub on the field, score a measly 20 points, and they're headed to a AFC South crown.

The truth is that the Texans allowed too many points when facing good teams and didn't score enough against good teams. Their average score versus '08 playoff teams was 20-31. The Texans were -14 in turnovers against these teams. Those are the stats that have to be turned around for the Texans to be considered a good team.

Well, in regards to last season, we can thank Sage for some of those statistics: Baltimore, Indy, and Minnesota... I think those three games pretty well sum up the case for replacing Sage. After Schaub's rough start against Pittsburgh (in which he suffered a concussion in late in the first quarter, IMO) and Tennessee, he was one of the 5 best QBs in the NFL. I think Duane Brown's maturity, another year of Alex Gibbs', the emergence of Slaton and a running game, and a defense that will actually make some plays, will all allow Matt Schaub to prove himself to be among the best QBs in the NFL. There is always the potential that I'm being a dilluded fan, but I feel pretty confident that, emotions and optimism aside, he has the tools, drive, and mentality to be great.

[Lucky]

Originally Posted by dalemurphy

Well, in regards to last season, we can thank Sage for some of those statistics: Baltimore, Indy, and Minnesota... I think those three games pretty well sum up the case for replacing Sage. After Schaub's rough start against Pittsburgh (in which he suffered a concussion in late in the first quarter, IMO) and Tennessee, he was one of the 5 best QBs in the NFL.

That's kinda the point. You can select stats to make a team, group, or player look better/worse than they really are. Take away the games against the good teams, the Texans look like a dominant force. Take away the games versus the bad teams, the results are poor. No matter who is QBing the team.