Shaun Phillips: Back from London and ready to play
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Shaun Phillips is a linebacker with the San Diego Chargers and posts every week on this blog.
I am back from London, and I am excited about my new coach. I have to say that I am glad that Coach Ron Rivera is coming in and taking over because we needed a fresh start.
Please don’t think that I am taking anything away from former defensive coordinator Ted Cottrell, because that is not the case. Ted is a solid coach, but everyone has his own philosophy about how the defense should be run.
I think Ted concentrated more on the secondary, rather than the defensive front, and I think football should be played front to back.
It shouldn’t matter who is in the secondary when you have a dominant defensive front. It makes everyone else’s job easy. Granted, we led the league in interceptions last year, but the year before we led the league in sacks and that was as equally as effective.
It’s funny that as a result of our defense not having a lot of sacks, everyone seems to think it’s the defensive line’s fault. I almost began to question myself, but then I went back and watched every game and brought myself back to reality.
When teams know you’re good at applying pressure, they try to neutralize that strength by getting rid of the ball quickly, chipping good pass rushers, using play action fakes and mass protecting -- keeping seven men in to block four or five.
Break down every game our defense has played and you’ll see that we made the quarterback move around in the pocket plenty of times. I can say that I have single-handedly been a step a way from at least eight sacks. When you’re a pass rusher, you’re identified in every protection, which is a good thing because it frees someone else up.
People also don’t realize that you don’t see a lot of passes completed in my zone. That’s because there is a part of the game that goes unnoticed.
If you’re an outside linebacker and you can record six or seven tackles a game, you’re around the ball a lot, and players are getting stuffed running the ball your way. What defines a good player is productivity and statistics. Tackles, pass break-ups, sacks, quarterback hurries, fumbles and recoveries.
When players are statistically up in every category they are doing something right. But the players who are often forgotten are the guys with no statistics -- because they do their jobs so well that teams don’t run or pass their way. Guys like Igor Olshansky.
With that said, I think that the rest of this season will get a fresh start for us and I am eager to get on the field again with a new coach and a new outlook. And always remember, we’ll pay attention to the little things, because they usually mean the most!
Remember to vote for me in the Pro Bowl.
-- Shaun Phillips