Over the last 3 years, no team gas blitzed more often than the Arizona Cardinals. They love to send rushers from everywhere hoping to confuse and bait opposing offenses into making mistakes. In that 3 year span, they have forced turnovers on 14.4% or opponents drives, 4th best in the league.
Coach Koetter is expecting more pressure than the Cardinals used in their week 1 loss to the Patriots. He told Bucsnation, “I’m expecting that we’ll see more pressure than we saw last week. Arizona has always been a pressure team. Sounds like they were maybe wanting to pressure more than they did last week. Pressure can work two ways. I can be big for them and it can also be big for us. It will be less of a check down game, more of a ‘be on time with where you’re going to go with the ball.'”
Koetter is right, one of the best ways to counter an opponent sending extra rushers is to have your quarterback get the ball off quickly and let your playmakers get the yardage with fewer men in the middle of the field. Winston is ranked near the bottom in terms of ball release time, averaging 2.79 seconds before releasing. He showed progress from last season on the times Atlanta did bring the heavy blitz and that had been one of the main focus points in preparing this week.
