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Ryan Tannehill hasn’t been the only Titan to see good fortune in recent weeks; In case you weren’t aware, Harold Landry has been on a five-game sack streak! This includes sacks against quarterbacks such as Jameis Winston, Kyle Allen, Patrick Mahomes, Nick Foles, and Jacoby Brissett.
It’s been a stellar second year for the Boston College pass rusher, and it seems like I’ve written about him millions of times this season! But it’s worth every article, because Landry reveals something new to like about him as the season progresses. He’s been a strong presence as an edge rusher the team has not had in quite some time.
With this in mind, I thought it would be appropriate to do a film breakdown on all five of the sacks Landry has produced on this sack streak. Let’s get right into it!
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before; Harold Landry has a freakish bend. But seriously, it’s truly a force to be reckoned with. Here the speed he gets from it (while ducking and turning the corner) is nuts, and when he can’t directly get to Jameis Winston, he wisely decides to play the ball instead. The ball is stripped out of Winston’s hand before the arm goes forward, and he recovers his own forced fumble.
As a coverage sack this is less impressive, but hey it’s still a sack so it counts! Landry initially struggles to get around the Panthers left tackle, but as the play progresses Cameron Wake creates edge pressure, forcing Kyle Allen to run into the waiting arms of Landry.
Here’s another instance where Landry uses his freakish bend to create a sack, and this time it’s on reigning MVP Patrick Mahomes.
Landry flawlessly executes a rip move on left tackle Cam Erving, and the electrifying quickness he displays is too much for the tackle. He gets to Mahomes in a flash to put another new face on the Honor Roll.
Landry adds a Super Bowl MVP to the mix with this sack on Nick Foles, recently benched in favor of sixth round rookie Gardner Minshew. Landry’s speed in combination with Leonard Fournette mistaking his movement as inside instead of out creates this very easy sack opportunity for the Honor Roll himself.
It’s a good thing this happened too because the traditional pass protection was working, with all five linemen standing tall against the Tennessee pass rush. It’s just that Landry was able to quickly exploit Fournette so none of that mattered.
Finally, let’s take a quick look at Landry’s sack on Jacoby Brissett, the second on the Colts QB this season. This is a designed screen play that the Titans defense covers immediately, and with Jurrell Casey and Landry surrounding Brissett at the same instance, he’s down on the ground before he even realizes it.
Brissett has no choice but to fall down, and since Landry is the closest defender to him behind the line of scrimmage he’s rewarded with a fluky sack. Still, he’ll take that.
Harold Landry has been on a pass rushing clinic as of late, and with four games left he should have no problem hitting double digit sacks, which actually was a goal I expected him to hit this season. I look forward to updating this as December goes on!