Suh & Donald, teamwork

older article (11/15) but interesting

from: Even the NFL’s best pass rushers need a good wingman
Ndamukong Suh and Aaron Donald are even more frightening together than we thought they’d be, retired NFL defensive end Stephen White breaks it down.

https://www.sbnation.com/nfl/2018/11/15/18092924/aaron-donald-ndamukong-suh-rams-defense-nfl-pass-rushers

Profiles in devastation, Exhibit A

With a little over eight minutes left in the first half the Seahawks had the ball on their own 35-yard line. They needed to gain 6 yards on third down to move the chains.

Donald was lined up as the three-technique on the defensive left on right guard Jordan Simmons’ outside shoulder. Suh was the three-technique on the right across from JR Sweezy. Inside linebacker Cory Littleton was stacked off the ball just behind and aligned a hair inside of Donald.

On the snap both Donald and Suh took a stepped toward the A gap on their respective sides. Suh took more of an upfield track, and Donald went across a little flatter so that he could pass right behind Suh without them running into each other. At the same time Littleton took a step to his left to get Simmons to step over with him. When Simmons took the bait, that opened up the A gap inside of him. That is exactly where Suh was headed with his upfield track. Once Littleton saw Suh make it to that A gap, he looped to the right behind Suh to blitz into the opposite A gap.

While all that was going on, Donald was busy looping all the way around to the right, the opposite B gap between Sweezy and left tackle Duane Brown. Once Donald got all the way around there Sweezy appeared to be in decent position to pick him up. I’m sure he probably thought so, too.

The problem is that there just aren’t many offensive linemen who can block Donald one-on-one in the best of circumstances. With Sweezy having just finished trying to punch down hard on Suh, he was still a little off balance as Donald approached him. Let me tell you buddy, that is definitely not the best of circumstances to be trying to block him.

Donald actually went a little extra wide, forcing Sweezy to come out and try to push him even wider so he couldn’t have a straight shot at Wilson. But Sweezy’s aggressiveness was his undoing. Donald dipped and ripped right through Sweezy’s outside shoulder like a hot knife through butter.

But there was still a potential problem for the Rams. With Suh in the left A gap, Littleton in the right A gap and Donald rushing through the right B gap, that left the B gap on the left as a potential escape route to get away from the rush.

Except, Aaron Donald.

See, all it went out the window after Donald made a hard left turn hit that peeeeeeeewwwwnnn, tracking Wilson down before he could step up and cause some trouble.

It’s a good thing, too, because Doug Baldwin ran a dig from the slot that had the defender on him completely turned around. Without any pressure, that would likely have been a easy third down conversion. Instead, it turned into a 5-yard loss.

Profiles in devastation, Exhibit B

Fast forward to the fourth quarter. Shit was close to hitting the fan for the Rams. With 10:38 left in the game, the Seahawks had worked the ball all the way down to the Rams’ 8-yard line. Trailing 21-26, Seattle really needed to find a way to get the ball in the end zone and put the pressure back on the Rams. Seattle was facing a reasonable third-and-5 situation, and they didn’t have to go for the end zone. They could just try to get the first and line up inside the 3-yard line with a first-and-goal.

This time Suh was the left three-technique and Donald was the right three-technique. Suh beat Simmons relatively right off the bat with a jab ole arm over move inside. But Simmons grabbed Suh by the waist from behind and wouldn’t let go, which of course slowed Suh down.

Curiously the referees didn’t throw a flag.

On the other side, Donald initially came off the ball appearing to run a TEX game with edge rusher John Franklin-Myers. And I would guess maybe he really was running a TEX game because Donald got to Duane Brown’s back and Franklin-Myers got up the field a couple of steps outside of Brown and then looped inside of Suh.

However, normally with a TEX game the three-technique has to become the contain element of the defense and the pass rush in particular. On this play, though, Sweezy’s shoulders ended up perpendicular to the line of scrimmage, and as I’ve said before, that is never a good thing. Instead of concerning himself with containment, Donald just said fuck it and broke out with a a spin move inside once he realized Sweezy’s feet were all out of whack.

But you always have to remember that Aaron Donald is an alien. He is so athletic that he could probably still contain Russell friggin’ Wilson even after having made an inside spin move. I wouldn’t recommend any regular humans try that. Your coach is liable to dog cuss you from Genesis to Revelation while relegating your butt to the bench.

Since Aaron Donald is Aaron Donald, it worked perfectly for him. Even with Franklin-Myers looping inside prematurely without doing much to help set up the game, it still worked out well for Donald. That’s because the center, Justin Britt, was sliding towards Donald, but when he saw Franklin-Myers looping around, Britt decided to take him instead.

FUCKING MISTAKE!

Wilson had Suh and Donald bearing down on him at the same damn time. That had to be terrifying af.

Had Simmons not just about tackled Suh from behind, Suh probably would have gotten to Wilson first. But there is also the chance that he would have flushed Wilson and then he would have had one of his patented zig zag scrambles before completing an improbable bomb downfield. With Donald and Suh coming for him, there was nowhere to go but into the turf.

It was also so much cooler to see Suh and Donald take Wilson down pretty much simultaneously for a loss of 7 yards, forcing Seattle to settle for a field goal on one of the biggest plays of the game.

On the all-22 it looks like Tyler Lockett was coming free on a deep out route in the end zone from a trips bunch set just as Donald and Suh were sacking Wilson. That sack was a huge play no matter how you slice it, and the dynamic duo showed up again.

Profiles in devastation, Exhibit C

Near the end of the game Suh and Donald’s double whammy services were once again needed in order to close out the win.

Celebrating the big fellas

In a sport where quarterbacks are king, there’s not much room in the spotlight for the players who get paid to wreck them. Still, pass rushers have a bigger role in the game than ever, and we are here to celebrate the big fellas. Each week, retired NFL defensive end Stephen White breaks down the best pass rusher in the league, the Hoss of the Week.

This year’s winners, so far:

Week 1 — Von Miller, Broncos

Week 2 — Geno Atkins, Bengals

Week 3 — J.J. Watt, Texans

Week 4 — Demarcus Lawrence, Cowboys

Week 5 — T.J. Watt, Steelers

Week 6 — Chandler Jones, Cardinals

Week 7 — Aaron Donald, Rams

Week 8 — This is what Aaron Donald looks like turned ALL the way up

Week 9 — Meet the man who makes the Vikings defense a nightmare for quarterbacks

Week 10 — Why even the best pass rushers need a wingman

With 37 seconds left and the Rams up five points, it was desperation time. There was reason to doubt that the Seahawks had much of a chance to win at that point, but that’s why they say looks can be deceiving, my friend.

Seattle lined up with David Moore and Doug Baldwin to the left of the offensive formation, with Baldwin in the slot. I don’t know what kind of coverage the Rams were playing to that side exactly, but what I do know is that when Baldwin ran up the seam about 10 yards and bent his route inside, the safety to that side broke up on Baldwin.

That left Moore one-on-one with Peters who has certainly had his share of issues in coverage this season. With a little time Wilson likely would have been able to throw up a 50/50 ball in the end zone to Moore. That throw would have had a very good chance of being a touchdown because Moore was in good position.

Once again, Wilson didn’t have enough time.

If you were watching that play on TV you may remember it a little bit differently. It just looked like just a run of the mill throw away at the time. But from the all-22 its pretty clear that Moore had a great chance to score there and ruin the Rams’ day.

Because the dynamic duo wasn’t going.

Suh and Donald were at the left and right three-techniques, respectively, and they ran a pretty unique version of a TOM pass rush game together. Normally, you have two three-techniques and one of those guys is supposed to be the penetrator. The penetrator usually rips hard into the A gap between the guard to their side and the center, and then the other loops inside, behind the penetrator, to end up in the B gap on the opposite side of where they started

A TOM game is usually for when you have a reasonable idea of which way the center is sliding. You want the penetrator to be to the opposite direction of where the center is sliding, so that when they slant inside, the A gap is actually available and they can get to the center’s back. That allows the two rushers to end up with a two-on-one situation against the guard which is what pass rush games are usually designed to do, better the odds of success for the pass rushers.

When the center slides to the penetrator or just hangs around in the middle, that usually fucks the game all up. The penetrator can’t get through and up the field, and the looper has to give ground to get around. Just trust me, it’s usually a cluster fuck when that happens.

Ok, so Suh was the penetrator on this TOM game, but instead of slanting inside where the center might have been able to help stop his penetration had he slid to the guard. Suh bull rushed the piss out of Simmons, picked that man up and drove him back and all the way over to the opposite A gap.

That bull rush from Suh did two important things.

For one, it kept Suh right in front of Wilson so he couldn’t step up in the pocket and try to escape.

It also gave Donald a much flatter angle to loop around so he could get a free run at Wilson. Donald got two steps up the field to attract the attention of Sweezy and Britt, then he exploded around Suh to go hunting for Wilson.

The genius of running the game this was was that Britt didn’t even notice how far Suh was driving Simmons back because he was so busy eyeballing Donald. By the time Britt tried to change directions to mirror Donald, he was already screwed with Suh and Simmons right beside him serving as a natural pick.

He tried to reach out and grab Donald to keep him from getting a free run at his quarterback, but Britt was fried as soon as Donald dipped and ripped under his arms. That kept Britt’s hands off of him and allowed Donald to hit that turbo boost again. His impending presence forced Wilson to speed up his throw.

Donald ended up diving, but narrowly missing, Wilson’s arm as he was following through on the throw. Still, he obviously affected the accuracy of that pass. If Donald didn’t get there when he did, we might be talking about the Rams being on a two game losing streak. Hot takes would abound.

I want to send a heartfelt thank you out to both Donald and Suh for sparing us that cruel fate.

Profiles in devastation, Exhibit D

Now Donald’s last pressure of the game didn’t have anything to do with Suh, but I would be remiss if I didn’t at least mention Donald’s effort on that play. He didn’t even have that good of a pass rush. Donald forklifted Sweezy’s arms to hump him outside which was okay, but then did a shitty spin move on Britt who slid over to try to help.

To make matters worse, Donald also had to clean up Dante Fowler’s mess after Fowler just gave up on containing one of the most dangerous running quarterbacks in the NFL on the most important play of this game, and came all the way inside of Donald to the opposite A gap.

When Donald saw the quarterback trying to scramble, he made a spin move back in that direction and hauled ass to try to stop Wilson before he could cross the line of scrimmage. Wilson knew he had to find a way to gain 10 yards or the game was over. When he took off to start his scramble, there wasn’t a Rams player in the secondary who was within 14 yards of him.

Not a single one.

As Wilson approached the line of scrimmage the secondary actually continued to sink so that they were all at least 15 yards from the line of scrimmage. I understand that with so little time left and no timeouts that running with the ball wasn’t necessarily the top option for Wilson, but we’ve all seen him turn a play like that into a first down with his legs and get out of bounds. The Seahawks, and specifically Wilson, had to find a way to gain at least 10 yards on that play or else. Even if Wilson was tackled in bounds, if he got the first and was able to spike the ball with even one second left on the clock the Seahawks would have had at least one more stab at a comeback.

The only thing that prevented Wilson from taking off and making another big play with his legs to give his team a chance to win was Donald’s ridiculous acceleration and all out effort.

Once he took off in pursuit of Wilson, Donald was able to close the gap between them with astonishing speed. It’s pretty clear on film that if Wilson tried to run for it at that point, he would have had a hard time getting more than a few yards down the field unless he was somehow able to break Donald’s tackle attempt. Considering the unlikelihood of that, Wilson made the only decision he could make and tried to throw the ball to get the first instead.

But throwing wasn’t a great option for him at that point, either, thanks to Donald, because if Donald got there quickly enough he might have been able to get to Wilson’s throwing arm before he could get the pass off.

Wilson didn’t have much of a choice, though.

As he started his throwing motion, Wilson had to have felt Donald diving at him with his arms fully extended and his hands out reaching for Wilson’s arm. Donald wasn’t quite able to make contact, but he almost certainly affected Wilson’s delivery. The ball ended up sailing well over Lockett’s head along with any lingerin hopes of a Seattle victory.

Thanks to Aaron Donald.

With his two and a half sacks on Sunday, all of which came on third down by the way, Donald moved right back into the league lead with 12.5 on the season. That’s sacks also a new career high for him with six games to go.

When I told you he was playing on a whole other level a few weeks ago, I wasn’t playing.

But as you can see from this column, it usually takes at least a little team work to make the dream work when taking down a quarterback. On Sunday, with Ndamukong Suh as his wing man, Donald once again showed up and showed out. When you tack on his two other pressures, including the one described above that sealed the win, plus a tackle for a loss, Donald did just enough to earn his third Hoss Of The Week honors of the last four week. Unprecedented.