Buccaneers preparing for Chicago: Studying the tape on ‘Da Bears

Inorganic at Best

In Week 1, the Bears defense got zero pressure on Matt Ryan organically, and the Buccaneers offensive line will look to make this a repeat performance.

The Falcons quarterback was sacked twice and pressured another two times. Each of these occurrences came because the Bears pulled off a blitz, normally delayed, and one of the Atlanta linemen or running backs misread the defense.

Outside of these four drop-backs, Ryan had all the time he wanted to survey the defense.

In this first example, look at how clean Ryan is following through, and how clear his line of sight is.

If you didn’t know better, you’d think this was a practice warm-up rep from his body language.

While you can’t see the whole play from this one screen grab, I can assure you there are two reason’s a quarterback uses his check-down.

The first, is immediate pressure. When there are simply too many rushers to account for, a smart running back will simply turn and make himself available for a throw.

Another, comes when the quarterback surveys the field and simply decides to get a completion and as many yards as possible, and then come back for the next play.

The second is the scenario here.

So was the next one.

The important thing here is not only body language and position of Ryan, but space. There’s almost 10-yards between him and the closest defender, and another ten between his target and a defender.

This play went for 8-yards after Ryan took the check-down. A play any quarterback would gladly take.

Another key component of the sacks and pressure Chicago did get on the Falcons’ quarterback; nearly all of them came with no tight ends on the field.

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When do you ever see the Buccaneers with zero tight ends? Hardly ever. Now, Cameron Brate isn’t the greatest blocker in the world, but we’re not talking about prolonged blocking either.

Jameis Winston needs a solid three seconds to shred a defense, and unless the Bears plan on bringing six pass rushers on a consistent basis, the stage is definitely set for him to get it.