Well Drew Brees had his best game of the season against the Lions and whipped their ass. The Falcons also beat the Lions too. Those 2 teams accounted 40% of our losses on the season.
"Yea but the rookies Fua and Mcclain sucked against the run"...not so fast. over 12 games(they were put on i.r. after that) they allowed a whopping 3 rushing TD'S up the middle. Biggest one was a 9 yard run by Adrian Peterson.
For comparison Rushing TD'S to the left occured 7 times(over the same time period) with 2 of them going for 19 yards and another for 17 yards. (Hardy and Munnerlyn played on that side of the field). Runs to Charles Johnsons side with Gamble in run support only happened twice in the same time span.
In our worst defensive perfromance of the year we gave up 49 points. 5 Touchdowns were thrown by Stafford. Intersting fact, none went to Calvin Johnson who was matched up against Gamble. In the only other game where we gave up 40 plus points (last game of year against the bounty hunters) the rookie DT's were on I.R.
What about pressure on the QB? Well DT's rarely rack up sacks but their job is to free up their supporting cast to do so. Last year as a team we had 31 sacks, which frankly sucks. CJ our leader got 8.5 of his 9 in the 12 games our Rookie DT'S played in. Outside of him everyone they sucked bad.
Hardy was 2nd with 4 and he played more snaps than anyone! Keiser only played in 8 games and even less than half the snaps as Hardy also accumulated 4 sacks. Nobody else had more than 2.5 sacks.
Guess what 4-3 teams tied for the leauge in sacks...Vikings and Patriots.
The Vikings starting Ends (Allen and Robinson) combined for 30. The Eagles starting Ends(Babin and Cole accounted for 29).
An argument can be made that much of the eagles sacks were coverage sacks thanks to their prolific secondary.
The Vikings had one thing in common with us. They too had a terrible # 2 corner (Cedric Griffin) and even with 2 great Ends and a top notch DT in Kevin Williams they could not hide his suckage. So please spare me the argument that getting an improvement at DT will make it okay or lessen the damage if Munnerlyn or a if 4th round or later CB starts opposite him. (remember we currently have no 3rd). Gamble proved good corners don't even require the help,instead they give the pass rushers more time.
So theres my argument that DT is not a draft need this year, rather a luxury we can't afford.
http://sports.yahoo....ms/car/schedule,
click on the score of each game, and look at drive summary to see the directional td runs. for diehards, click on play by play for every directional run.(Hardy spare your feelings and don't do it).
http://www.profootba...e-2011-numbers/
For the CB stats
For the other stats, NFL.COM will provide you with eveything you need.
TL;DR VERSION. Stats prove Munnerlyn and then Hardy were the biggest liabilities on the Defense last year not the Rookie DT'S.
Edited by panther4life, 03 March 2012 - 11:51 PM.





