heir_jordan22 wrote:That article is stupid. Urlacher clearly is going to say he's not involved because he doesn't get to be near the line of scrimmage and therefore he doesn't get as many chances to get sacks and force turnovers. That's clearly what a defensive player wants to do.
But his impact on this D goes beyond that. With Urlacher in that deep zone nobody wants to throw the ball deep. As Brain says, he's selfish, he wants the ball in his hands. But he has tremendous impact on how teams play us. Dumb article.
At least when healthy, Urlacher is a huge part of the run defense. We defend the run better than most teams and we don't have any of those 350 immovable blobs like other teams do. The reason is because of Urlacher and Briggs flowing to the ball and, filling their gaps and both being ridiculously good tacklers.
On passing downs, yes, he does cover the middle of the field. But that's important. If we had a slower, less athletic guy there (who didn't play safety in college) then we wouldn't be as good there.
I think Urlacher might have misspoke. The cover 2 utilizes him quite a bit, it just doesn't let him attack the football.
