Tennessee Titans need a balance of rookie dominance and veteran consistency
By Will Lomas
Derick Roberson and Harold Landry
We saw this work in the early part of the year with Landry and Cameron Wake being a pair of dynamic speed rushers that kept offensive lines on their toes. With Wake on I.R. Roberson has filled in incredibly well as the speed rusher opposite Landry and that needs to continue today.
Marcus Cannon is the Patriots starting right tackle and has has allowed five sacks in the last five games. That means that the pair of Landry and Roberson need to find a way to maintain that sack-per-game average tonight.
How these two can work together isn’t immediately clear, but when you look at how they have been used you can see it.
Like with so many players before him, Roberson is a one-trick pony but it is a heck of a trick. His first step quickness and explosion make him dangerous vs tackles with slow feet.
Similarly, Harold Landry wins with quickness off the edge but there is a slight difference. Roberson needs to beat the tackle before turning the edge, while Landry has the bend and burst to make him more slippery at tough angles.
If one of the tackles gets used to pushing Roberson past the pocket on his speed rush, they may get lazy and try to shove Landry past Brady only to realize that Landry’s bend makes it hard to get a push on him leaving Brady exposed to Landry in the pocket.
Likewise, Landry is being forced to try to counter or take the B-gap too often which really isn’t his strength (though it has worked several times before). If he can get an offensive tackle to second guess his technique and constantly live in fear of that inside gap being exposed, then that half step is all Roberson will need to blur past him and get a sack.