This blog (post) is about football and it’s about defense. Last Sunday, I watched Tom Brady who some think is the greatest quarterback that ever lived. He’s certainly been a great one. He played against the New York Jets. and Tom Brady’s team did not score a touchdown. Tom Brady was reduced to an average player. And why was that?

It’s because the head coach of the NY Jets, Rex Ryan son of Buddy Ryan (who had the great Bear defense of the 1985-1986 when they won the World’s Championship), and they did it by pressuring the quarterback. Rex Ryan said we’re not going to let Tom Brady have time to throw. We’re going to rush 6, 7, even 8 people if we have to to put pressure on the quarterback because he knows and I know, as a quarterback, that if you pressure the quarterback and knock the quarterback down, he’s not going to complete passes and score touchdowns.

But most defenses don’t get it. They try to rush the quarterback with a 4-man rush or a 3-man rush and they don’t get there and quarterbacks eat them alive and throw for 300 and 400 and 500 yards a Sunday. And they wonder…well why didn’t we win? Because we didn’t’ pressure the quarterback. Because they did not commit enough people to the rush. Ryan did it all day long. 80% of his defenses were blitzing defenses but not just a 1-man blitz rushing 5 people. He rushed 6, 7 and sometimes 8 and here is really the defining moment of his defense. They’re ahead by 7 pts — 16 - 9 I think the score was. All the timeouts were gone by New England. Brady has the ball on his own 10 or 12 or 15 yard line with no time outs and one minute left.

Now you think about it. 99% of coaches in football college or pro would go to the prevent defense 2 man rush line, 3 man rush line and not pressure the quarterback and you’ve seen them lose games all the time doing that. Ryan went with blitzes: 6, 7, 8 man fronts, rushing and pressuring the quarterback. Brady tried to throw four times. He threw weak, wobbly passes 4 times because he was off balance.

I played the game for 18 years. Set all the passing records. If you didn’t rush me, if you didn’t put pressure on me, I’d kill you. But when they did and they knocked me down and rushed me I became very ordinary. Why don’t defensive coordinators understand this?

I watched the Georgia Bulldogs play Arkansas. Georgia with a quarterback that’s starting for his first year. Arkansas with a quarterback starting with his first year and they put up 90 something points on the board. I think the quarterbacks threw for 9 passes. Why? Because they didn’t put pressure on the quarterback. It’s almost impossible to put pressure with 3-man and 4-man fronts or even a 5-man rush. You’ve got to be be willing and courageous enough to have creative blitzing with 6 and 7 and 8-man rushes.

I will to tell you…I watched the game and Rex Ryan had very sound creative blitzes that confused Tom Brady and the New England offense coached by the guru of all coaches Bill Belichick http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Belichick. and what’s the end of this story. The end of this story is here. Defensive coaches around the world, if you want to keep points off the board and keep people from lighting you up for 300 and 400, 500 yards, you’ve got to be willing to go and have sound fundamental blitzes with 5, 6, 7 and even 8 people coming! When you do that you give yourself a chance to be able to win football games.