Defense won this game tonight...

I've been saying it for 3+ seasons now, things are bad all over.

 

I have to think it is a little of both. I think the system/scheme stinks and we play that bend don't break style. Which we all see when there is 3-4 guys standing around an open receiver. Now one thing that leads me to say this is remember when we cut concrete shoe Mitchel? He goes to the Colts and gets player of the week, are you serious???? This tells me MM wasn't as bad as many here thought he was but more about how he was used. These are jmo and I am sharing it.

 

Mitchell wasn’t a FS and they left him out there to die because they had no one else. They claimed they didn’t want to move Davis because he was just adjusting to SS. They also tried to sell whoever was willing to listen that their safeties were interchangeable. I never had faith in Davis as a FS and I made my doubts well known. I would say myself and @Wardismvp were two of the biggest proponents of finding a true FS. We finally pulled the trigger with Minkah and he has already proven in a short time a true FS makes a big difference.

As far as your point on the scheme I have been noticing something for the last 3-4 years that when we go zone which we do quite frequently on 3rd down I see guys just basically dropping into areas I’m sure they’re probably coached to do. They seemingly drop to predetermined areas of the field instead of playing in close proximity of what’s actually happening with the receivers. The receivers are then just finding the open areas that have been vacated by essentially blindly spot dropping. That would certainly help to explain our struggles on 3rd and long and the predictability we’ve been hearing about from opposing QBs for years as well.
1st down usually solid. 2nd down usually solid. 3rd down pot luck.

 

I will not lie I have always been high on Davis what I saw pre draft isn't what he has been showing since. With that said I agree the need for a true FS has been big and it is showing now like you said. As for what you are talking about on 3rd down true story and that is what I am talking about. It don't matter who is back there our scheme stinks. We see a guy catch the ball on 3rd and long and there are 3-4 guys around him but not covering him. This has been going on for some time now.

 

Other teams know where our hole is on 3rd & long, up the middle. Pass, run, catch & run doesn't matter. Hole seems to always be there.

 

Makes ya wonder why huh?

 

Yes because they’re covering areas and not players and if someone’s drop is a little off or too close together it creates huge voids in the coverage that’s being easily exploited due to predictability. IMO. I think it was BBH who posted a GIF a little while back where both of our DBs were covering each other. .....sigh

 

Year after year game after game this happens one would think someone on the coaching staff would catch on........just sayin.

 

Or, how many 1st round players does it take to overcome poor coaching and makes it appear the coaching is average?

 

Just my opinion but a lot has been made of so many 1st rounders on this team, but a lot came from other teams and didn't work out. Example Alualu is a first rounder with failed success, Burns is a first rounder and many here was surprised he didn't get cut. Just pointing out that being a first rounder and having so many on out defense don't really mean anything. Some might say it is even a problem cause we are taking other peoples trash.......

 

When talking 1st rounders the talk is about the starters . There’s a boatload of them starting. Not necessarily talking about the back ups....

 

More than what we have now.

 

Yeah well there is a lot of talk here and in the media that is talking about how many #1's we have on defense. We have 4 #1's that we drafted that isn't bad, I would think that is normal no? Now of them 4 Dud and Edmunds have taken a lot of fire, nobody can say anything bad about Cam or TJ right? We only have 2 on offense and both are on the line, some can say we are drafting pretty bad on offense cause we only have 2 there. jmo

 

We’ve had 7-8 first rounders starting at some point this season. Regardless of where they came from and how they got here they were starting here. You should reasonably expect pretty impressive results that we haven’t quite seen. You would think? I think the point is why aren’t we seeing those results? Is it coaching or are more than half those 1st rounders simply not that good? IMO we have/had enough talent to expect greater results.

 

Where they came from matters and what I mean is if they were any good they would be some place else. Being a first round guy don't mean you are a star, heck we see that every game with Edmunds no? Guys like Alualu, Burns and Edmunds are not first round talent by the way they have/been playing. Now look at the way this team have been playing I think we can see that Minkah, Bush, Watt, Cam, Haden and Tuitt are playing up to first round talent right?

 

Haden is good came from Cleveland because they didn’t want to pay him. Minkah for other reasons. I’m not sure of the point either one of us is trying to make anymore to be honest I will sum it up with I think we have enough talent on D to be better and I think we can do better than Butler. We are good on 1st and 2nd downs. 3rd not so much. To me that’s schema or the guys forget how to play on 3rd downs.

Edit: Tuitt wasn’t a number one . I know you know that. Bush,Watt,Cam the guys we drafted would be good on any team. We have a horrific track record of drafting and developing DBs it could be a bad pick or terrible development or somewhere in between. There plenty of talent on D to succeed regardless of where the non first rounders were drafted.IMO

 

Yeah man I think we got off path a bit but my original opinion is so many want to point out the fact that we have so many #1's on this defense. My opinion is if you get #1's from other teams most of the time it means they were a bust, Alualu for example. Now the last couple games this defense has stepped up and once we figure out 3rd and long they could be great again. jmo

PS Brain fart on Tuitt........