RON WOLFLEY

Wolf: Beware of Back Waxers

Mar 23, 2011, 1:11 AM | Updated: 2:15 am

Quarterbacks are paid the money. These guys make big bucks. Other than the center repeatedly snapping the ball, the Q is the only player on the team that actually does something with the ball on every play. They impact the team in ways that no other position can challenge. Quarterbacks make others around them better. If the Q can play, the offense has a chance to ball.

Pass-rushers are paid the money. They also make big bucks. In the pass-happy league of the NFL, pass-rushers are a defense’s quarterback – not inside linebackers, not safeties, not corners. These guys are Back Waxers, predators with pride in purpose and uncommon temperaments.

Back Waxers have mass, strength, speed, explosion and a penchant for reducing bodies to piles. Pass rushing specialists impact other players and make others around them better. If a DE/OLB can harass the Q, the defense has a chance to ball.

This is why the Cardinals should take Von Miller with the 5th pick in the 2011 draft this April. I hope Von Miller is still on the board when the Cards come callin’. He is a freak.

And he wants to play here.

Miller told my brothers, Gambo and Ash, he would love to wear Big Red blood. “It would be a blessing to go out to Arizona and play for you guys,” Miller said.

It would be a blessing, indeed.

Corners cover better when the Q doesn’t have time to take his drop, go through his progression, set his feet and throw. Safeties get better reads on Q’s that know they must make quick decisions, allowing some to take chances and make plays on the ball. Backers get lost more easily in their zone-drops and interior pass-rushers – like Darnell Dockett and Calais Campbell – are often singled up.

They make everybody around them better. Isn’t this what we say about quarterbacks?

And it doesn’t end there. They make defensive-coordinators better. They impact game-plans offensive-coordinators slave over and protection schemes must account for the whereabouts of the Back Waxer.

Lamar Woodley, James Harrison, Clay Matthews Jr. and Elvis Dumerville all are game changers. Back Waxers extraordinaire, these guys fit in today’s zone-blitz happy scheme like bread in a bag.

Cardinals defensive-coordinator, Ray Horton, needs help. You can have the best schemes known to man but if those X’s can’t execute those schemes you got diddly-jack on Spam. Von Miller could make the Cards better immediately just like Clay Matthews Jr. did his rookie year. The Cards defense might get a little more respect than they did last year, a little more dangerous and NFC West QB’s might even put an “X” over Phoenix.

Beware…there be Back Waxers here.

Ron Wolfley

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Wolf: Beware of Back Waxers