The Redskins Blog

Jim Haslett Enjoys Pei-Wei, Blitzing

This is the time of the year that’s generally thought of as the ultimate dead time in the football calendar, but I that’s not stopping the fine folks at NBC-4. They’ve been posting Redskins-related video content like it’s the second week in September. Sure, much of that has been of the Edwin Williams Goes To The Spa variety, but still: it’s there. Today’s entry? Defensive coordinator Jim Haslett and NBC-4′s Lindsay Czarniak snack on some takeout Pei Wei and chat about the defense.

http://www.nbcwashington.com/syndication?id=93457804&path=%2Fnews%2Fsports

One quote from Czarniak’s accompanying web article really stands out, as Haslett discusses the advantages a three-man front can provide:

“Just the unknown of where you’re coming from, who’s blitzing, who’s not blitzing. You can just do so many things out of it that you can’t do out of a four-man line. Now, if you got great four-man line people, then you play that.” He adds, “There’s no reason you can’t go 3-4, 4-3. I’ve played in both, coached in both, been successful in both. I think its just the type of players you have. I think the cornerstone of the team on defense is Brian Orakpo. He had 11 sacks last year, rushed 200 some times. In this defense, we’ll rush 600-700 times.”

This squares with one thing I noticed at mini-camp: as someone who has only previously seen pro 4-3 defenses in practice, I found it much tougher to predict who was going to be doing what on each play.

Plus, just look at that math! If 200-odd rushes = 11 sacks, 600-odd rushes = 33 sacks. And math never lies!

View more news videos at: http://www.nbcwashington.com/video.