Warrior General Games

Ok: This is NOT a 'nerf passing' thread.

As we've seen in other threads - it would appear that not many teams have truly focused on run stopping skills (some have). That must mean that teams have generally focused on stopping the pass - and rushing the passer (with DE's and DTs). I'm seeing this on my team as well - as (because of the general competition I face) I play a lot more pass teams than run teams. I have certainly focused on pass defense skills - including pass rushing (which hurts me against running teams).

As my journeyman team is quickly approaching the end of the builds life (still a ways to go) - I'm spending more time evaluating my use of skill points so far -- primarily - are pass rushing skills even worth spending on??

First of all - even though rookie ball leads to lots of sacks - I'm skeptical that pass rush skills contribute to all of them. As my example - my LB Peter: http://glb2.warriorgeneral.com/game/player/56613
102 sacks in Rookie
46 soph
47 seas

He has no pass rushing skills. That is all blitzing and speed and agility.

Here we are looking at pass rushing skills specifically. Pass Rush Tech; Pass Rush Power; Spin; Tunnel Vision; etc. My D Line uses spin fairly often -- and it fires fairly often -- but it is not often that it actually results in a sack or hurry. This has me wondering - what does pass rushing look like in Vet?

I went through and looked at every Vet team with a winning league record. I gathered my data from their 'team leaders' page - looking only at their QB stats.

Format: Team Pass Attempts-Hurries-Sacks
Gen 336-23-0
Bris 334-8-1
Rusty 622-46-6
Sen 223-27-4
Dinos 311-15-6
Corning 307-32-3

QC 142-10-4
SoA 712-17-3
Rancho 197-7-2
Hub 155-41-6
Mem 333-32-4
Mr. Men 100-27-9
Burning 239-28-5
Pauline 382-62-10

Erkner 132-13-5
NW 386-55-7
SEA 499-43-8
NY 244-15-6
Mong 546-45-6
Iowa 390-20-0
Sunny 463-51-13

Tampa 363-29-1
MoD 395-41-3
Alpine 437-60-11
Hustlers 307-46-8
Osprey 720-35-5

Warsaw 285-28-8
Music City 422-8-1
Minn 498-44-3
Ronin 117-12-0
Dakota 425-36-3
Legacy 320-28-4

Totalling all of that up:
11,322 pass attempts
984 Hurries (8.7%)
155 Sacks (1.37%)

For the sake of estimating - this means in a game with 40 pass attempts - there will be:
3.48 hurries
.54 sacks

All of those points by DE's and DT's in pass rushing skills -- and that is the output?

Does it seem to anyone else that spending even a single skill point on Pass Rush Tech / Pass Rush Power is insane (maybe include footwork there)?
Doesn't it seem that spending even a single action point on spin or tunnel vision is absolutely crazy?

Based on this - It seems to me that if you're a rookie team building a defense focused on anything other than run stopping skills (since pass rushing skills are ineffective) you are making a big mistake. (Sure - your pass rushing will have some highlight worthy plays against terrible teams)

Am I missing something here? I'm honestly thinking that I must be - so please point it out to me.

Well pass rushing seems to force early throws even without getting an official hurry sometimes, so I don't think having a D-line full of guys with 15 PRT and PRP would go very well against an all passing team. I could be wrong though. I have a feeling if you went that route youd end up giving up a much higher YPA vs passing teams, even if you gave up the same Comp%.

On a blitzing LB you dont necessarily need any PRT or PRP, that's for sure. Physicals are the most important skills for them by far IMO.

Originally posted by mrm708
On a blitzing LB you dont necessarily need any PRT or PRP, that's for sure. Physicals are the most important skills for them by far IMO.

What would you suggest as SAs? Without PRT spin cycle is a bad idea, right? My first SA would be showboat, but what's next for a blitzer without PR skills?

Originally posted by Evil Sports Agent
What would you suggest as SAs? Without PRT spin cycle is a bad idea, right? My first SA would be showboat, but what's next for a blitzer without PR skills?

First Step to gold is the most popular blitzing LB skill. But yeah, after that, you're looking at showboat/trash talk or something like that.

Originally posted by Galithor
First Step to gold is the most popular blitzing LB skill. But yeah, after that, you're looking at showboat/trash talk or something like that.

Thanks!

I'd go showboat first for sure. Depends on build though.

To OP, yeah, I guess not. Especially when hurries (8.7% occurrence) only decrease the completion percentage by 5 percent.

Originally posted by mrm708
Well pass rushing seems to force early throws even without getting an official hurry sometimes, so I don't think having a D-line full of guys with 15 PRT and PRP would go very well against an all passing team.

Stobie's data showed that there is virtually no difference between completion yard when hurried and not hurried. If official hurries don't affect anything, I am not sure if not-so-official hurries do anything different.

To be fair, I've got d-line players with 99 hold ground and I know I'm not the only one. Your focus that everything is deep in pass rushing skills is inaccurate. I've also got a big weakness with my teams pass rush. My builds hurt me against passing teams (as they should). I wouldn't recommend someone invest in all run oriented skills because pass does nothing. That's not the case.

That all being said, it's pretty well known that pass blocking o-line builds are dominant at pass blocking (as they should be).

I encourage no one to invest in pass rush skills for the next five seasons.

Mostly because I'm building a pass blocking line that is heavily invested in Beat Down and intimidation, and I want to see three or four D-linemen on the ground every time I drop back to throw.

This also ignores the fact that the pass rush is very different in Rookie. The WRs take forever to get into the sweet spot range to be passed to, so the QB takes the hit. The D also rushes 6-8 players in rookie, while you see a lot of 3-4 man rushes in Vet.

Even without forcing hurries/sacks, you can still disrupt passing plays by forcing throws sooner. How well your secondary handles that depends on their builds. Air Raid's been held below 50% completions a couple times this season. Once to a heavy coverage, light rush scheme. Once against a heavy rush, light coverage scheme. Builds matter in how well you execute your desired method of pass defense.

You can also cause more rattled snaps where the HB, FB, TE, BTE are held in to block. Every time you do that, it's an additional defender that is freed up to double up on another route.

If you can get a good pass rush with just your Defensive Line, and not having to blitz LBs, you can really leverage a nice advantage with extra coverage defenders on rattled plays. I've seen 2 WRs getting quadruple covered before.


That said, I don't think you can afford to ignore tackling on any defender. Many times you'll be in a situation where you've only got one defender that can make the play on defense against a HB, and he damn sure better not miss that tackle.

Depends on who is rushing. I have 2 CBs who blitz the QB on a regular basis and have spent 0 SPs in pass rushing skills. They use speed, pursuit, snap and quickness to get to the QB before a lineman can block them.

My pass rushing DE, however, is maxing out pass rush tech.

Without any pass rushing skills your D-line will get pancaked often on Passing plays. Seems like it only takes a modest investment to prevent this though.

http://glb2.warriorgeneral.com/game/player/86612

82 Pass Rush Power. Guess how many of those revcakes are against passes?

You don't need to get to the QB every time... he's got a ton of intimidation and he's going to start working on pass rush deflection skill soon. He'll have the * level bonus today too. Though I really want to get his next AP so that I can silver Beat Down.

If they pass the ball against my team enough times, their o-line gets to look like Swiss cheese by the end of the game.