Last week’s Broncos-Bears preseason game was an ugly one for the Bears’ offense and a great one for the Broncos’ defense. Denver won 22-0 and Chicago quarterbacks Jay Cutler, Brian Hoyer and David Fales all took plenty of hits from the Broncos’ pass rush.
But did the Broncos dish out too many hits? Is there an unwritten rule that defenses shouldn’t blitz in the preseason, and did the Broncos violate that rule?
Not according to Broncos defensive coordinator Wade Phillips, who took to Twitter to address those questions and said that he sees alleged experts criticizing him for blitzing even when the Broncos didn’t blitz.
Phillips tweeted that five of the Broncos’ sacks were on four-man rushes, and the other two sacks were on five-man rushes, while none of the sacks were on actual blitzes. The pinned top tweet on Phillips’ Twitter feed is an attempt to explain the distinction between “blitz” and “dog.”
“Funny how ‘experts’ don’t know a blitz (six rush, five cover eligible receivers) from a dog (five rush, six cover) -- there are also pseudo blitz and dog schemes,” Phillips wrote.
When it comes to designing an NFL defense, there are few “experts” on the same level as Phillips. And he’s going to keep running his defense his way, even in the preseason, even if not everyone likes it.