Cowboys coach Jason Garrett, asked how much aggressiveness he wants to see from defensive coordinator Rob Ryan in going after quarterbacks, said he’s wary of being too aggressive.
“You want to be aggressive, but at the same time, you want to be sound fundamentally,” Garrett said at his Wednesday press conference at Valley Ranch. “That applies to gap control in your run defense and certainly defending the back end in the pass. You want to be aggressive, you want to be attacking, you want to be downhill at the offense, but at the same time, you want to be sound really in all aspects of your defense. The best defenses do that. You need to affect the quarterback. You need to create turnovers. Those are things that our defense continues to work on and continues to try to get better at.”
The Cowboys took criticism this week for not blitzing Seattle rookie Russell Wilson more in the 27-7 loss.
Garrett said aggressive is a mentality – not a series of blitzes or passes on every play.
“You hear me say this all the time: We need to be aggressive,” Garrett said. “That doesn’t mean we throw the ball every time on offense. It doesn’t mean we blitz all the time on defense. It doesn’t mean we have special plays and gadgets and all that stuff. That’s not what we’re talking about.
“You certainly want to give your team an opportunity to do those kinds of things. You want to be in attack mode in all three phases of your team. You want to play downhill. Sometimes that means rushing four and playing coverage. The mentality you’re playing in that is aggressive, it’s attacking, it’s not passive.”
-- Carlos Mendez
Twitter @calexmendez
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