Us sucking D on Defense, is it the coaches or the talent?

[Sean Payton's Vicodin]

I don't know how our defense fell apart this quickly, we were very solid last year and now we made the guy who won the get to be a Bengal for a day contest have an excellent game in place of AJ Green.

 

So who's to blame? The lack of talent and filling the defense with scrubs and rejects, or the coaches for not adapting?

With that said, bring Hardy's ass back after the Green Bay game, he'll have served his six games by then. (I know this won't happen because JR has to have his team take a hit in order to help goodell's incompetent ass with PR, but it would be nice)

[Biggdaddi1022]

Talent our secondary has no speed... Mitchell had speed and captain had speed.... Harper is slow and old and decoud does not have the speed to make up the space when he over misreads a play.

[IamSoClutch]

It's hardy and not having Mike Mitchel

[KillaCamNewton]

Yep. It's a talent thing and age thing. Mitchell and Captain were average in coverage but were very young and quick and could make up for misreads. Harper and Decoud are too old and slow

[CelibatePimp]

I think it's speed if you ask me. We lack speed on defense.

[stankowalski]

Yeah I gotta agree...it's a talent issue more than a coaches issue.

[*FreeFua*]

Talent forsure. However, keeping Godfrey out there when he's being targeting and abused on 3rd down doesn't help matters

[unicar15]

Lack of talent. This is the same scheme that had us the second best defense in the league last year. The main difference that I see is the lack of aggression at the point of attack. If it's not Luke or Davis trying to make the tackle it appears weak in the secondary.

The safeties are atrocious. Harper is terrible. I honestly think the only reason he's playing over Lester is because he plays so deep that he won't give up the deep play. Staff must think Lester's a liability there.

Last year Mitchell flew all over the place...the guy had some dumb penalties but he would lay the wood and had good hands. There is no intimidator there anymore. People aren't scared to go over the middle if they stay away from Keuchly and Davis.

You can't discount the lack of pass rush off that right side. Teams are basically singling up every DL and daring CJ to beat them if he can get there in the time of a 3-5 step drop. This works because our DBs suck and the OCs of the other team basically believe that there will always be a receiver open if they can get the ball to the perimeter. It's pretty pathetic. We can't man up bc they suck...we can't zone bc we can't get an adequate rush without a DB breakdown first.

[CarolinaNCSU]

Not having Hardy allows the opposing offensive line to no longer double team somebody. Without pressure, they can send somebody right at Luke/a LB and open running lanes. Without pressure on the QB, our CBs are too average and safeties too shitty to cover/catch up to anyone. 

 

If we get to the QB, we're still fine. Problem is, we haven't been consistently doing so. And I don't have faith in us to get back to doing so this year. 

[fieryprophet]

Talent. We were designed to be a pass rushing team. We have no pass rush. It's as simple as that.

[JawnyBlaze]

It's the coaches and FO.  They're the ones that put Kraken on suspension and keep playing Godfrey.

[beastson]

Definitely talent. Rivera and FO may want to rethink their "front 7 makes backfield look good" approach

[chknwing]

without hardy, out front 7 is average, having him made a beast of a front 7 which made up for lacks in the secondary.  that is amplified without him.

[panthers1234]

The front 7 is a great approach if you have the D-line. CJ is playing at a below avg level even with the DT help. Missing that one elite DE is trickling down to the rest of the DL, LB, and secondary.