So did Rivera give control of the defense back to Washington?

[rayzor]

46 minutes ago, Mr. Scot said:

Washington is something of a protege to Rivera. If he fails, it means Rivera has failed. Thus, rather than just fire him, Rivera is going to do everything from can to save him

If this is true, I just wish he was as determined to make the team successful as he is his protege. He loses games, he fails. It's that simple.

[jb2288]

1 hour ago, t96 said:

Tepper could’ve rebuilt this place from the second he got here, and he should’ve.

Imagine the possibilities if we were on year 2 of a new offensive minded coach right now. A first year coach (last year) would've shut Cam down as soon as he got hurt because no pressure to coach for your job yr 1 and he'd be healthy now. Ugh

[TheRed]

28 minutes ago, Cracka McNasty said:

Am I the only one who isn't disappointed in the defense so far? I think they did perfectly fine last week, only allowed 20 points, just over 200 passing yards, under 100 rushing and the only player that beat us regularly was Godwin. That's more on Jackson than the entire defense, Godwin ate his lunch. 

Either way, Defense played admirably and kept the team in the game. Offense couldn't put it in the endzone. 

I guess that depends on your definition of disappointed. Has the defense been horrible? No not at all. But speaking honestly this is still very much a defensive team identity wise. That is where we have directed the bulk of our resources.

Panthers are averaging giving up 133 yards a game on run defense. Only 7 other teams in the league are worse than us in that area right now.

https://www.espn.com/nfl/stats/team/_/view/defense/stat/rushing/table/rushing/sort/rushingYardsPerGame/dir/asc

[PantherPhann89]

I don't see any improvement on the defense side, so this tells me one of two things: 1. Washington is calling the defensive plays again or 2. Both Washington and Rivera sucks at defensive play calling. 

[Khyber53]

2 hours ago, TheRed said:

Just a general observation. But I hate that Eric Washington is taking the brunt of criticism over this. He didn't promote himself. Ron considered exactly zero outside candidates for the DC position the same as he did with Norv at OC.

You could argue that maybe other coaches saw the writing on the wall that Ron was maybe on the hot seat so to speak. But I personally don't buy it. Many teams over the last several years have had a revolving door at head coach, and still brought in coordinators. The Bucs brought in Todd Bowles. Seems like it has worked out well for them.

I'm just gonna say it, but I fear Ron was looking more for potential scapegoat material in the offensive and defensive coordinator positions rather than what was actually best for maximizing the talent we have.

Honestly, more than anything you can't have two defensive coordinators lost to HC jobs two years in a row and not suffer mightily. Rivera and McDermott built a helluva defense here and he was able to maintain it with Wilks at about 85%. Wilks was promoted from within because of his familiarity with the whole concept and personnel on hand, and I think Washington was, too. 

Maybe it was chasing lightning in a bottle, but by the time Washington got the job, the personnel had changed/aged too much and the wrinkles had been figured out without adding any new ones in (which McDermott was masterful at). The desire for continuity just was stronger than the desire for innovation. I think having  Luke out there directing traffic and diagnosing plays covered up a lot of it, but even he can't do the work if the wrong personnel groupings are on the field.

Things are more aggressive defensively when RR is in charge of it, you can just feel it. When Washington takes the reigns it isn't "bend don't break" but more of a "do what you want to the girl, just leave me alone" kind of defense.  Our offensive woes last week may have meant RR had to hand off the play calling back to Washington to try and find some spark on offense. Both sides collapsed against the Bucs, the lowly Bucs.

[Ricky Spanish]

8 minutes ago, TheRed said:

I guess that depends on your definition of disappointed. Has the defense been horrible? No not at all. But speaking honestly this is still very much a defensive team identity wise. That is where we have directed the bulk of our resources.

Panthers are averaging giving up 133 yards a game on run defense. Only 7 other teams in the league are worse than us in that area right now.

https://www.espn.com/nfl/stats/team/_/view/defense/stat/rushing/table/rushing/sort/rushingYardsPerGame/dir/asc

In context though, The rams have one of the best run blocking lines in the entire league, the offense gave them short fields all game and the Defense never got off the field. Secondary looked solid. 

They came back against Tampa and allowed 3.2 yards per carry which is really good. Line was getting penetration all night and hitting ball carriers in the backfield. One of the scoring drives was prolonged due to a dumbass penalty by McCoy. Pass rush looked good, and secondary looked good outside of Jackson. 

Defense is not our concern right now. It's the offense 100%. 

[Mr. Scot]

8 minutes ago, rayzor said:

If this is true, I just wish he was as determined to make the team successful as he is his protege. He loses games, he fails. It's that simple.

I see it the same as his desire to see all the veterans end their careers "on their own terms".

[MasterAwesome]

Lol I love how much people feed off of each other’s uncorroborated baseless speculation.

-”Rivera came from a military background. Washington’s favorite movie was Saving Private Ryan...so Rivera feels some kind of deep emotional connection with him”.

-“Woah, that’s kind of crazy...it’s like, why keep an incompetent coordinator just because of their favorite movie? Ridiculous...he’s even dumber than I thought”.

[Peppers90 NC]

1 hour ago, ncfan said:

Which on that note.  I know @ellis is good at digging back up and though the film, wonder what % we've reverted back to 4-3 this year than playing the 3-4 that we all saw Rivera running in camp

Are you looking to see a 3-4 alignment more against 11 personnel? Because if you are, you will be sorely disappointed against 10 personnel.

[TheRed]

4 minutes ago, Cracka McNasty said:

In context though, The rams have one of the best run blocking lines in the entire league, the offense gave them short fields all game and the Defense never got off the field. Secondary looked solid. 

They came back against Tampa and allowed 3.2 yards per carry which is really good. Line was getting penetration all night and hitting ball carriers in the backfield. One of the scoring drives was prolonged due to a dumbass penalty by McCoy. Pass rush looked good, and secondary looked good outside of Jackson. 

Defense is not our concern right now. It's the offense 100%. 

Pass defense has been solid, I didn't expect us to be 3rd in the NFL in passing yards allowed. Because of that we are 12th overall defensively average yardage wise.

Looking at and comparing the numbers for Carolina and Arizona, they are worse than us and bottom of the league in both offensive rushing yards and rushing yards allowed defensively. If our staff can't put together a gameplan to defeat this team with a new head coach and a rookie QB, it's time to say adios.

[Ricky Spanish]

4 minutes ago, TheRed said:

Pass defense has been solid, I didn't expect us to be 3rd in the NFL in passing yards allowed. Because of that we are 12th overall defensively average yardage wise.

Looking at and comparing the numbers for Carolina and Arizona, they are worse than us and bottom of the league in both offensive rushing yards and rushing yards allowed defensively. If our staff can't put together a gameplan to defeat this team with a new head coach and a rookie QB, it's time to say adios.

Won't argue that

[CRA]

1 hour ago, jamos14 said:

I think a lot of the 3-4 / 4-3 difference is due to the fact that Bruce Irvin is hurt.  It's tough to stop the run in a 3-4 if you have Burns or Haynes at OLB.    Much easier when you are in 4-3 to make up for a softer edge player.

 

 

I think thought is pretty spot on.  Hopefully gets answered pretty soon.  

Because just eyeballing it, we are basically the same 4-3 D we have been despite all the talk this offseason.  

I agree Irvin was part of the 3-4 looks

[stratocatter]

Sorry, the idea that a coordinator is hired to be a scapegoat is just ridiculous. I don't want to believe people are giving this traction.

[CPcavedweller]

3 hours ago, Mr. Scot said:

I can't feel too bad for Tepper given that he made the decision to keep the "clowns" in place.

Calling Cam's foot a clown? Given the final score of our two games, if Cam doesn't sprain his foot against New England and is able to do everything he usually does, Carolina wins both of them. 

You can also add that we switched to a 3-4 base and have been running at least half of our plays in a 4-3 because Bruce Irvin has been out. He and Burns were our two guys to start the 3-4 era yet only one of them has been available. Burns doesn't have the ability yet to set the edge and I doubt Marquis Haynes ever will. Literally the only reason we never got a shot to stop Gurley at the end of Week 1.