I HATE quarterbacks.
There’s only one quarterback I love, and he wears #3. But other than Clayton Tune (and the other QBs at UH), I really, really HATE quarterbacks. I mean it so much, it’s my Twitter bio.
But I HATE quarterbacks with good reason, and I’ll tell you why.
If you look at the NFL Draft, the players that usually go first are quarterbacks. In my eyes, it should be edge rushers because you win the game by stopping the quarterback. That’s how you win championships. It’s how you win Super Bowls – that’s how you stop Tom Brady. Get to him with the pass rush.
I don’t like ’em. They think they run everything, that they’re the cool guys. What’s better than hitting the quarterback and killing his energy? Showing him that he’s not what he thought he was.
The whole quarterback narrative of being the guy and being the reason why the team is so successful – I really like to shut down that narrative. I can’t wait til the next time I put a QB on his butt. But truthfully, I could go the whole season without having a sack. As long as my teammates get them, I don’t care. SACK AVE is a collective thing.
I love when my teammates get to the quarterback. LOVE IT. Before he went down for the season, my favorite DL to watch was Derek Parish. Seeing guys like Derek go crazy is so fun. Parish was the hardest worker on the team in practice, making big plays with great technique.
Some days in the preseason, the offense would have a 4-5 play drive, and Derek would get three sacks. Similar to what he did in OT in the Texas Tech game, getting sacks on first and third down in that overtime drive (no, it did not end well). But I think people forget how good he was in that game – four sacks, five TFLs, and a forced fumble.
This is not excuse-making, but things could have been a lot different if Derek Parish had been healthy. Even with his season-ending injury, Parish ranks among the best in FBS, while SACK AVE has three of the top-five edge pass-rushers:
I love to tell the story of SACK AVE. That was the name of my defensive line unit at Long Beach City College. The UH DL were talking, and we wanted a name that fans would love. Our DL has been good at getting to the passer for a while – Payton Turner, David Anenih, Logan Hall, Parish, and Nelson Ceaser – we all get sacks. So we went back and forth between SACK AVE and SACK CITY. But the city is too big – the Ave was us staying in our lane, doing our thing, which means hunting quarterbacks.
My Quarterback-Hunting Techniques
I love to speed-rush the quarterback. I love to run around people. A lot of tackles like to turn on me, turning their hips out, and getting their chests high. I love pulverizing those guys. It happened in the Temple game: he started slightly turned out, giving me the perfect opportunity.
Now, my favorite move is speed to power. A quick first step up the field gets the tackle moving back and opening his outside hip. That’s when I cut to make my power move, and with his hip angle, I have a direct line to the QB. I can run a man over 50 pounds heavier than me and just put him in the dirt.
It’s the best feeling ever. Well, ok, it’s second only to having a son. Have you met Prince? He’s nine months old, and he HATES quarterbacks, too.
My biggest accomplishment used to be playing football at the University of Houston. But now, my biggest accomplishment is being Prince’s father.
Offensive tackles are big, heavy guys, so lining up wide helps me get away from them. I’m a shorter defensive end, not as long as Payton Turner or Logan Hall. So I have to bring a different approach to the pass rush.
I can run around tackles, which helps me evade their grabbing hands. Plus, the more I make them move from their comfort spot near the offensive guard, it helps me and makes them worse. They’re not used to being in that much space which gives me an advantage.
We are working to get back to SACK AVE dominating like before. We are pressuring quarterbacks and getting them off schedule, but we are not finishing the job enough. We’ve got to step up and finish. Al Davis used to say that “the other team’s quarterback must go down, and he must go down hard.” That’s my mentality, too. We have to punish him and put him in the dirt. He has to dread dropping back to pass.
Have I mentioned that I HATE quarterbacks?
-D’Anthony Jones #44
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