I'm already over the Secondary/Defense

I agree with what you're saying, but didn't we hear Butler and others talk about how we'd like to employ more press man schemes this year because it was a fatal flaw that Brady (and others) exploited last year? Did we think we'd be able to do that with essentially the same cast of characters?

 

Ok if they don't matter and they aren't giving anything away. Then run man the whole game. Practice pressing and not giving 5-7 yard cushions. You can at least focus on an area of weakness and work on it. How do the Patriots run the 3-4 better than us with far less skilled players. It's mind boggling.

 

Agree with everything you said and as far as the bold. That's why I think this comes down to coaching. Patriots have one of the best defenses, running a 3-4, and with far less skilled players. That's why they go for IQ over athletic ability. A lot of it comes down to people missing their assignments. I like Mitchell but he will never be a defensive QB like Polamalu. AFCCG is a perfect example. Their gameplan is essentially keep everyone in front and don't give up big plays and hope for mistakes and he bites on PA and gives them the easy 60 yard touchdown to Hogan. Shazier is only on the field 50% of the time. They were beating us with some no name at WR and no Gronk. Now they got Gronk and Brandin Cooks.

 

the trick is being able to mix it up. that makes qbs have to read longer. not many teams have had the formula to beat the pats. butler said we were very young last year. burns and davis had some injuries also which stunted the press man coverage being taught. the pats run a lot of pick plays as well and get away with it often. press man can be beaten trying to defend that. mixing the coverage from presnap to snap can make him hold the ball a tick longer and thus the rush has a second longer to get near him. i do think we have the players to do this.

 

i kind of like dixons play so far. he's hanging with his man pretty well. we just have to teach him to be less grabby and he could end up being pretty decent. he's got some size and the speed. they are working with allen and he has a couple of more weeks of work to go. hilton is looking the part as well. i still say we need some free safety help. we have way too many strong safety types here without good enough coverage skills.

 

This was exactly how I read Butler's comments. They needed more versatility - young secondary, lacked a response to NE's surprising gameplan (and for the xxxth time, people really need to note that NE were running formations they'd only run a handful of times previously in the season), need to have more in their arsenal, more different looks, more problems to throw at whatever QB they're seeing.

That's not the same as "we're going to run man all the time from now on", which seems to be how some people interpreted him for some reason...

 

I think you make some valid issues but it still comes down to having guys that can play man coverage. When it comes to Brady, he has almost a perfect passer rating against zone coverage schemes, it drops below 100 when going against man coverage, that is why when Revis was in his prime the Jets would give Brady fits, like Manning he relys on timing patterns and a good cover CB will force him to look at check downs, that is when QB pressure comes into play. With our CBs unable to play man because they lack the skill to do it, it forces them to have to play off the LOS 5 to 7 yards and by the time the ball is snapped the QB makes a pitch and catch and they march down field like that almost effortlessly. You can't blitz without getting burned because the guys are getting torched and it happens fast, Cockrell gets beat off the line on go routes more than 50% of the time, bring a blitz and he has no help over the top and it results in big play after big play. Then you have the issue with LBers in coverage, you are right, they have to cover more because we don't have safeties that are capable, Davis is like Mitchell, an enforcer who has very little in the way of coverage skills, it doesn't make him a bad player but if you look he is out of position more than a few times a game. As others have said, we make no moves in the draft or FA to improve the unit, instead they keep hoping to find a diamond in the rough through guys that don't belong anywhere but the practice squad, there are 32 teams in the league and most could use a CB and most, and sometimes all, of those teams pass on CBs we cut or end up in FA, nobody even willing to talk to Cockrell tells me that everyone else is seeing what we see, and the way the 3rd string Falcons QB picked on him during that game means teams know what we have and just watch if the outside doesn't get attacked hard during the season. The only way we beat the Browns is by executing early on offense, this team will not win games against good QBs if they fall behind, that is what happened with the Pats game, we were forced to play catch up with a defense that couldn't stop anyone, they rely on unforced errors to get off the field and even the head coach is acknowledging it. There is a lot of blame to go around but you can't play zone against solid QBs like we do and we play a soft zone and the reason for the soft zone is again, the CB position lacks enough talent to cover there man though the zone and pass off to the next player so they set up soft allowing guys to run free and make a catch with the ide they just tackle the guy and keep the play in front of them and make the other team dink and dunk down the field and hope for them to make a mistake on 3rd down which doesn't happen much against good offensive teams. Make no mistake, a single solid CB will improve the defense by leaps and bounds as you can change defense looks and shift coverages and even blitz when you don't have the worry that your cover guy is going to get beat with ease every time you try it.

 

As opposed to the 15 other ways they were beat last year?
I think you give the Brownies too much credit. Way, way too much credit.

 

the only way to beat the pats is hope we don't play them lol

 

Maybe there should have been a stickied thread done during the off-season called "Why we lost to the Patriots", and have this kind of thing there, and the other more detailed analyses that have been posted, for ease of reference.

The main reason would, of course, be simply "we played like ****". But it could work into the details more from that.

 

by the time we figure out brady/belicheck, they would of won 8 superbowls, both retired and pats change the scheme lol.

 

Key to beating the Patriots is a great DL and man. I just skimmed thru that game and the Jets ran man pretty much all game. Not to mention they had Revis pretty much locking down one side of the field. Also, Brady was under center a lot. They were trying to run and doing a lot of screens. They weren't doing a lot of their normal 4-5 wide because the Jets had a great DL and Revis was pretty much eliminating their #1 WR every snap.

 

they have started moving players around i saw. sensabaugh and gay. i think this is good news to see what we have.

http://www.steelersdepot.com/2017/08/tomlin-says-sensabaugh-challenging-cockrell-starting-spot/

 

They were discussing this on SNR this morning and Tunch said he thought Ross was having a bad camp and seemed off or disengaged. He said he had Sensabaugh as his number 2 behind Artie and that maybe it would be good for Ross to kind of push him, get him back to form.

 

I just watched the condensed version, and it looked like a nice, effective mix of man and zone. The Jets D-line also got enough pressure/crowding on Brady that he didn't seem to have those quick slants available.

 

Rex Ryan said he never used a full or soft zone defense against the Patriots. They ran man coverage on the outside with a mix of man and short zone on the backs and TE, no receiver was ever free to run in zone coverage.

 

Exactly, you watch the game. Revis was in man/pressing and locking up their #1 WR all game. I mean that's huge when you can pretty much eliminate one person on every snap. That's why the Patriots went and got him. There was a lot of times I couldn't tell if they were in man or zone because it looked like zone but they had a hat on a hat and running with them so that definitely explains it.

 

Sadly, this has to be bumped. This Colts game is the worst one yet. Tlolizen? Now the 3rd string is shredding them. Coaching is failing. No adjustments from last week.

 

Revis is still available. For what that is worth.

 

He could probably come off the couch and be better than Cockrell