Mitch
Crawled Through 5 FB Fields
Great post, Catfish!
Check this out...what Donnie Henderson did last game versus the Bears was ingenious. In the first two pre-season games, he noticed that no one was throwing in DRC's direction and were trying to pick on McBride and Toler at RCB...so what does he devise?
He moves DRC over to RCB and switches Greg Toler to LCB so that FS Kerry Rhodes can shade Toler's side...which is the more natural side to shade for a FS, particularly versus RH QBs.
The results were just as Henderson was hoping. When Jay Culter saw that throwing up the left side of the Cardinals' defense was difficult with Rhodes sitting over the top of Toler...this tempted Cutler to try to pass to the right side of the Cardinal defense and DRC, like a thief in the night, baited him and stepped in to make the nice momentum changing interception early.
As for the LCB/FS tandem, on one occasion they sandwiched
Inglesias, poounded him simultaneously and broke up the pass, and on another Abdullah had deep help while Toler backtracked and intercepted the ball.
Witness too the play of nickel back Michael Adams. As you alluded to, Catfish, Adams looks far better coached this year, as he is applying sticky coverage, jumping the routes, breaking on the ball and getting deflections...when he isn't rushing the edge like a rabid fox terrier.
Kudos to Coach Henderson...and what he likely anticpates now is that teams will try to exploit the right seam of the defense with Rhodes shading the left...but...Henderson has the fast and athletic Daryl Washington to take the romance out of the seam pass. And can help when necessary by planting AW on that side.
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