Flawed Defensive Philosophy

[TheMaulClaw]

 

We invested heavily on a D-line financially as well as with draft picks and stuff. We swept our secondary issues under the rug 

hoping a beast D-line putting pressure and stud linebackers making plays in the running game will be the ingredients for a great D.

 

Then the Hardy situation happened. Not sure what's going on with CJ and the tackles too, but our front 7 is not getting it done and our sorry secondary is getting lit up

 

The defensive disaster so far this year is a result of the putting-your-eggs-in-one basket philosophy and not addressing all positions of need. Hope we learn from what is happening this year. Hope we start addressing all positions. Instead of a juggling act where we hope that one area of need masks deficiencies in another. We are trying out Presley (WR) as a DB for God's sake. That should not happen

 

 

I understand what you're trying to say, but I'm not sure if you can put it on the defensive philosophy.  I think you can chalk it up to bad timing, bad luck, or poor judgement (both on coaches and bad players).  Philosophically the defense works, last season will point to that.

 

I do think the coaches might have been more aware of Frank Alexander's substance issues before his last testing.  That kind of makes me wonder if they weren't trying to stop him from doing it.  Seems like if they were aware of his problem (which they were), that they would have gotten him aid, or put in place some internally run system to make sure he was on track to being clean.  If you're on the hook paying a guy good money, and if you have to babysit him to protect your investment then that's what you have to do.

 

The Hardy situation was a combination of poor judgement by Hardy, and really really bad timing.

 

Defense is sort of the mirror image of the offense, and they're built the same way.  From the inside out.  It wouldn't matter how awesome our secondary is, if there's no pass rush they're sitting ducks.  Conversely, our secondary didn't look truly bad until "The Hardy Effect" took full shape in week 3 against the Ravens.  Through the first two weeks of the season our defense looked like it was going to surpass last years.  Holding Detroit (a very good football team) to 6 points is no small task.  Rivera was very wise to announce Hardy's inactive status till right before game time.  Had Detroit been able to game plan for us on the assumption that Hardy wasn't playing the outcome of that game would have been different.

 

Obviously secondary players and cbs are very important.  One could argue that the NB is starting to emerge as maybe the most important position in the secondary as the game evolves.  All you can really expect out of a db is be able to cover a guy for 4.5 to 5 seconds and that's being generous.  If the opponent is able to run the ball successfully then it creates a whole new set of problems for the secondary.  Now there's an added playaction threat.  You've got safeties blitzing in run support which creates more ground to cover in the secondary for our dbs

 

A successful 4-3 defense is designed on the foundation of having a strong front 4 that can get to the QB, stop the run without loading the box, keep the LBs clean.  The reason?  It's harder to disguise blitzes playing a 4-3 unless you creep a safety/nb in the box (which also exposes space in the secondary).  This is one reason Munnerlyn was so valuable for us last year.  He had great ability to blitz from the nickel position.  Either way, if the DL can't do those things then the defense will suffer massively. 

 

Without Greg in there Charles will see more double teams.  They can double team either of our DTs.  Olineman can get to the second level easier.  Our LBs may shade to Horton's side to compensate for his ability.  So right now we're sort of seeing Luke getting exposed physically as a result of this. 

 

Anyway, yea.....we need more DL.