Offensive/defensive synergy (or lack thereof)

I wonder if some of the woes of the team are because the O and D practice against one another. If the offense has few plays designed to challenge the middle of the field, how is the defense supposed to get good at defending the middle of the field? If the run blocking is poor, how is the D supposed to practice against good run blocking? Do our route trees work against our defense? There seems to be no answers when they don't work. If the offense doesn't throw long, how can our DBs get better at defending long passes? Just wondering'.

And maybe there should be some mock officials at our practices to ensure our formations and plays are legal and won't get penalized. Those are drive killers.

I suspect what we see in games is a result of what goes in practice, and that ain't cuttin' it.

 

A fair point...the Steeler D must feel like world beaters playing against our horizontal offense. They could line up all 11 players within 5 yards of the LOS with no one in the middle of the field and not give up more than 1-2 yards on each play.

 

The 2015 defense with Jarvis Jones,Will Allen,Blake,etc were better that now.And it was not because of the time of possession since the 2015 offense were a big play team,not a time of possession team

 

What made me think this is the weaknesses of our defense seem to be parallel to what out offense doesn't do - long passes, middle of the field, run up the gut. There must be a connection.

 

Wait, wasn't there some great former Miami coach that many couldn't wait to see what great things he'll be able to do for your defense? To be serious, I haven't seen Jack changes to our defense, and I don't know the accumulative impact of not having TJ on the field. JMO<