A lot of times what people call "aggressive" isn't really what I would like to see. It's not just about blitzing, it's how you blitz. And, what do we even mean by "blitz".
For most in the football business, a blitz is when you send 6 or more and you're playing man or man-free behind it. Tenuta did this some, but more often, he sent 5. This was called a "zone-dog". And, you never knew who the 5 were going to be and where they would be coming from. It could be 4 DL and a LB or 3 DL and 2 LB's or 3 DL a LB and a DB, you get the picture. Now, is this aggressive? Yes and no. I'd call it creative, controlled-aggressiveness. Sending 5 still gives you 6 to cover all of the zones in the passing game, so you've still got 3 deep and 3 underneath or 2 deep and 4 underneath. So, it's got elements of the aggressive blitz and elements of the safe zone coverage and run fits/support. And, a big part of what made it effective is the deception/disguise. Everybody in the back 7 were moving, buzzing up and back, and the OL/QB would be very taxed to try to know before the snap who was coming and where they were going to be coming from. So, sending 5 in this way could very well provide more pressure on the QB than just sending 6 with less disguise.
As ibeeballin pointed out in his vids, we actually ran some similar stunts in the first series against BC. Bench-Falcon-9-Anchor ... a zone dog where the Sam comes off the edge, the DE big sticks (crash inside hard), and the Mike loops through the B-gap. Weak DE actually drops into coverage. We're playing 3 deep behind it. So, you've got the Will covering the middle who is also able to run to the ball freely in case a ball carrier gets through the penetration from the zone-dog, the weak DE covering the hook/curl/flat and acting as an outside force player on that side, a safety buzzed up to cover hook/curl/flat on the other side and acting as outside force defender. Then you've got another safety and 2 corners playing cover 3 behind all that. The buzz-safety and WDE are taught to anticipate and take away the quick throw which takes away the QB's hot route. Again, you have the benefit of aggressive defense without sacrificing the conservativeness of zone support behind it (thus still minimizing chance of a big offensive play that gets by/behind everybody - you heard ibeeballin say it - "Live to play another down").
When we ran this against BC, it was wide open for a big sack (possibly a strip-sack) both times on the first series. The lane for the Mike was wide open, unimpeded to the QB. Once the Mike just inexplicably decided to go into the trash inside instead of looping through the lane in the B-gap. Another time he does loop correctly and is immediately in on the QB for a sack but the QB steps up and easily avoids the Mike who slips down and makes it into a positive run rather than a sack. So, when we run this stuff, it isn't getting home ... why? Lack of disguise or simply lacking making the play. Why didn't the mike make the play? Was it the player, was it lack of coaching up, lack of reps doing that kind of stuff, or maybe we chalk it up to first game mistakes. One was bench-falcon, another was tomahawk I believe ibeeballin said. I don't remember that one as much. Was that a Tenuta stunt
@Ibeeballin ? I remember most of his being named after birds and drinks and weather. My mind is getting fuzzier, but I seem to remember bird names being zone-dogs, drink names were blitzes (man free?), and weather names were sending 7 (0 - man-coverage).
My whole point is that simply saying "We need to be more aggressive" or "We need to blitz more" is not going to be sufficient to cause our defense to get better results. It has to be whole-sale systematic defensive play. And, it has to be sound and complimentary to everything else you're doing on defense and compatible with all of your different personnel packages.
