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Octoberblue said...

Totally agree that you can't put it all on Brewer and the other safeties. I mean yeah, it's great to have a guy back there who can always "clean up the mess". We really want to have that. Everybody wants to have that. But the front seven not making a mess in the first place is much more important.

I also think people are forgetting that most safety tackles come when a runner has slipped through a narrow hole, barely slid off of, or broken, a linebackers tackle, then stumbled a bit and just regained his balance. Most tackles by safeties do not come when a top-tier running back has a full head of steam from running eight to ten yards untouched into the open field, then just has to juke one guy and put out a passable stiff arm.

So okay, yeah, Eric Berry makes that play. Probably every time. A handful of guys in college football history make that play every time. It's really nice to have one of those guys on your team. Most teams don't, including us. I know there were cases where they should have done better in the open field. But there's also a lot of unreasonable expectations mixed in there.

My expectations are more pedestrian. I expect the hole to be narrow. I expect contact on the runner. I expect him to just be regaining his balance when the safety (followed by a couple of other pursuers) comes in to finish him off.

Of course, I love it when he is stopped at or behind the line of scrimmage. But if that doesn't happen, then this is at least a much more reasonable expectation of the front seven than thinking a safety or a corner should always be able to bring him down in the open field with no help at all.