I watched Ellis today and he was rarely double teamed. He just is not making plays. Robertson, on the other hand, was completely disruptive today and made more big plays today than Ellis has made in a season and a half. I'm tired of hearing these excuses for Ellis - it's either the scheme or the player next to him or something else. The bottom line is that he is not coming close to earning his huge salary. A player paid what he is paid should do more than "occupy" blockers and certainly should pressure the QB on passing downs.
DEs in a 3-4 don't get a lot of sacks. The fact that Ellis got 8.5 his rookie year was amazing, but the defense was also much better than what we have now. Richard Seymour only got 8 sacks 1 year, and never repeated. Kimo Von Oelhoffen got 8 sacks 1 year too, and never got close to 8 again. Why do you think 3-4 DEs aren't paid a lot of money, because they aren't there to get those ESPN highlight real sacks. (if they do it's because the O-line broke down in pass protection). What do you expect, it's not like we have a big fat NT to take some pressure off of him. Hope Alan Branch declares for the draft, because that's the only 3-4 NT possibly coming out next year.
He was getting pushed back and stood up on almost every play today. Bobby Hamilton was getting more push. He continues to be a no-show. I don't even care about sacks anymore, just put some pressure on the QB. Don't let the RB go right by you. With all of the focus on the lack of production in the interior line, Ellis has been pretty much invisible since the start of the '05 season.
