Cory Bailey, a Wrentham native and former Xaverian Brothers standout, will be providing some film analysis for BSJ this football season. A former captain at Fordham as an offensive lineman and long snapper, Bailey signed as a free agent with the Giants and played a season in NFL Europe. A former coaching intern with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Bailey has had a long career as a college coach with stints at Dean and Iona before becoming the head coach at Assumption and, most recently, as the recruiting coordinator and defensive line coach at Coastal Carolina the previous six years. A former Patriots ballboy in the 1980s, Bailey recently relocated his family back to Massachusetts.
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I’m very excited to start breaking down individual matchups. This week, I wanted to return to my offensive/defensive line roots and take a look at Trent Brown and why I have some concerns about Dee Ford and his edge rush in passing situations.
Granted, the Chiefs are certainly not the monsters of the midway and Ford is not Lawrence Taylor. However, I do think this game is going to be a high-scoring affair and it may come down to who can make a stop on defense.... one single stop!
Brown struggles with speedy, edge-rush defensive ends. He is an enormous human being and certainly has his strengths. Once he can get his hands on you and anchor down, it is over. Having said that, he has been susceptible to a true edge rush.
In the clip above against Robert Quinn of the Miami Dolphins, a similar player to Dee Ford, you can see Brown get beat fairly quickly on the edge.
In coaches terms ... Brown does not get enough depth on his initial kick steps off the line of scrimmage. The objective of the initial pass set is to get to the intersection of the defender and the QB at the top of his pass drop.
Once he realizes that he is beat, he leans in and doesn’t do a good job with his hands. He does not create space between him and the defender. As a result, he drops his shoulders and loses control of the rush. He loses a base and crosses his feet over. Quinn does an excellent job dropping his pad level, turning the corner (by opening up his hips), and ripping through to finish.
In this particular clip, Tom Brady is able to step up into the pocket as there is no push inside. If I were the Chiefs, or any of the Patriots opponents I would attempt to bring edge pressure with strong internal push.
The Patriots answer to speed edge rush will be to chip the defensive ends with running backs as they exit into their pass route responsibilities. This has been a staple in their pass protection up until this point in the season and I expect to see it continue on Sunday night.