I know a coach isn’t going to say the 4th overall pick is lacking, but the coach said he could blitz, but he’d rather him drop back to coverage and have a lesser LB blitz, Why expose a matchup advantage for the offense?

I’ve seen highlight film of him blitzing. Most of it was free blitzing, I couldn’t see how he did engaged with a lineman or runningback/tight end, but he’s disruptive. Didn’t always get the sack, but he definitely pressured the QB, and he blasted the QB’s too.

The key for me is tackles for loss. It’s not like the offense would have tried to protect the QB while letting Curry go after the RB unbloked. His tackles for loss stats are huge (admittedly, we haven’t got attempts, so he could have only a 50% strike rate when tackling behind the line – although this seems unlikely) suggesting when he tried to beat blockers, he did so very well. Therefore I think it’s most likely scheme – he wasn’t asked to rush the QB as often as cover the RB or TE/WR.

I grok the difference between a “pass rusher” and a blitzer with Curry. He doesn’t flash classic rip, swim etc moves, at least partly because he doesn’t put his hand on the ground. But he is lightning fast to close once he diagnoses, both behind and past the line of scrimmage.

He’s “solid” in the sense he doesn’t have glaring weaknesses. But not in the sense of being merely “serviceable”. The dude is a fierce, sudden player. Happy to have him.

1) You are wondering why people knock his pass rush, when scheme may be a large reason for why his sack numbers aren’t eye-popping. The important thing to consider is that rushing the passer and tallying up sacks is an important part of virtually any scheme. If Curry was a beastly pass rusher than WF coaches would have to be moronic to not use him in that capacity and I don’t think scouts are going with that.

2) Speed and strength aren’t the only thing pass rush requires. It also requires insanely fast reflexes to get off the line the moment the ball is snapped. Also, as was pointed out, one needs to have some moves to get by the pass protection. Curry may develop in this capacity, but since he hasn’t showed either attribute much in college, he isn’t a sure-thing great pass rusher.

3) Blitzing usually entails taking a longer path to the QB, although one often doesn’t have to go through an O-lineman to get there. This is where Curry excels, as he is very fast and has good awareness of what path to take.

WF coaches may very well have felt that while Curry is a good passrusher, he is better utilized in space where his great awareness and speed can make a big impact. I expect things to be similar in Seattle.

I personally am not terribly concerned. We failed to get consistent pressure from our front four last year. Curry will look fantastic if we get pressure from our front four, if we aren’t, blitzing him all the time is not gonna right the ship.

Though that could have been because there’s so much spread offense in college football, he was lining up more in a coverage position.

You’d think with his speed we’d be able to blitz him from off the line, like we did with Hill. Just with better timing.