What happened to our Defense?

[j_y19]

Any thoughts? They started the year off so impressive, but the last few games, they have sucked. Injuries have hit, but not that bad. The front 3 are as good as any in football. But our LBs (including our OLBs) have really not played well. And as usual, our secondary can't tackle. How many years have we been complaining about that?

 

[gkekoa]

The defense was a mirage. The holes were covered by poor offenses, recovering or injured QBs, and occasional fortunate plays by the defense.

Cardinals- their best player was returning from injury, their QB was horrid, and they’re only average 14ppg.
Colts- their QB was returning from a two year absence. They opened the season scoring 23, 21, and 16 before finding their groove.
Packers- Rodgers was injured and hasn’t been himself all season. Hell, they are only 13 in scoring.
Saints...there is no masking what they did to us.
Panthers- their strength is our strength. Cam was unable to pass the ball.

So on and so forth.

 

[j_y19]

The defense was a mirage. The holes were covered by poor offenses, recovering or injured QBs, and occasional fortunate plays by the defense.

Cardinals- their best player was returning from injury, their QB was horrid, and they’re only average 14ppg.
Colts- their QB was returning from a two year absence. They opened the season scoring 23, 21, and 16 before finding their groove.
Packers- Rodgers was injured and hasn’t been himself all season. Hell, they are only 13 in scoring.
Saints...there is no masking what they did to us.
Panthers- their strength is our strength. Cam was unable to pass the ball.

So on and so forth.

This may be true. But I still see talent on this squad. They should be able to stop the run and they should be able to pressure the QB. They should be performing better than they have of late.

 

[skinsdad62]

We have a hugely slow ilb in foster . And tackling in the secondary is awful , s d our cbs play way to far off

 

[gkekoa]

This may be true. But I still see talent on this squad. They should be able to stop the run and they should be able to pressure the QB. They should be performing better than they have of late.

Oh I agree, but I think the problem is the secondary and the LBs. I don’t think there’s is proper gap hits and I think the Lbs are late. From there, we can’t seem to cover. I wish we still had a certain corner.

Oh, and our collapse defensively seems to accompany HaHa. He I said putting up numbers but why?

 

[skinsdad62]

i think we got caught up in the hype too . at the beginning of the season i thought this was a middle of the road defense and if we got that we could be a playoff team

we are what i thought we would be but now instead of putting top resources into the defense to fix some holes we have to spend it on a qb we thought we had solved

 

[j_y19]

i think we got caught up in the hype too . at the beginning of the season i thought this was a middle of the road defense and if we got that we could be a playoff team

we are what i thought we would be but now instead of putting top resources into the defense to fix some holes we have to spend it on a qb we thought we had solved

And it has to be a cheap QB. Our cap is shot to hell. Most likely a draft pick. Which means we will be rushing another QB to start. That has always worked well.

 

[Breed]

Any thoughts? They started the year off so impressive, but the last few games, they have sucked. Injuries have hit, but not that bad. The front 3 are as good as any in football. But our LBs (including our OLBs) have really not played well. And as usual, our secondary can't tackle. How many years have we been complaining about that?

Atlanta - 24 rushes/154 yards/6.4 ypc
TB - 24 rushes/103 yards/4.3 ypc - Fitz ran the ball 8 times for 35 yards
Hou - 31 rushes/139 yards/4.3 ypc - Watson ran the ball 3 times for 7 yards
Dall - 34 rushes/146 yards/4.3 ypc - Elliot had 26 rushes/121 yards/4.3 ypc and Dak who only had 18 yrads on 6 carries, but his zigzagging 10 yd TD run damn clowned every player on the DL..

A thought I have is that a front 3 as good as any in football shouldn't be allowing this type of production to happen 5 weeks in a row. Particularly as playoff races are heating up.

 

[j_y19]

Atlanta - 24 rushes/154 yards/6.4 ypc
TB - 24 rushes/103 yards/4.3 ypc - Fitz ran the ball 8 times for 35 yards
Hou - 31 rushes/139 yards/4.3 ypc - Watson ran the ball 3 times for 7 yards
Dall - 34 rushes/146 yards/4.3 ypc - Elliot had 26 rushes/121 yards/4.3 ypc and Dak who only had 18 yrads on 6 carries, but his zigzagging 10 yd TD run damn clowned every player on the DL..

A thought I have is that a front 3 as good as any in football shouldn't be allowing this type of production to happen 5 weeks in a row. Particularly as playoff races are heating up.

That is exactly what is baffling me. Our front 3 is good. So WTF? Are our LBers that bad? Are we out maneuvered or due to bad play calling?

Personally, I’m very concerned about our LBs. Mason is slow. Brown can tackle but is frequently out of position. That holds true for our OLBs. Kerrigan is good, but his skills may be declining. He doesn’t have the impact he has had in prior years. Smith is just so inconsistent but has played well the last few games. Anderson is still raw but improving. Just not sure he will ever be a starter.

All I know is if we can’t stop the run, we have little chance of making the playoffs.

 

[tomcat1]

In a nutshell my take on this is that we rode an overachieving defense during the first half of the season to build a 2 game lead in the NFC East with our offense doing very little. Now that our defense has come back down to earth and our offense remains the same by doing very little this only spells trouble because of the high octane offenses that are present in today's NFL among the best teams.

 

[Breed]

That is exactly what is baffling me. Our front 3 is good. So WTF? Are our LBers that bad? Are we out maneuvered or due to bad play calling?

Personally, I’m very concerned about our LBs. Mason is slow. Brown can tackle but is frequently out of position. That holds true for our OLBs. Kerrigan is good, but his skills may be declining. He doesn’t have the impact he has had in prior years. Smith is just so inconsistent but has played well the last few games. Anderson is still raw but improving. Just not sure he will ever be a starter.

All I know is if we can’t stop the run, we have little chance of making the playoffs.

The interior DL hasn't played well during this stretch, but other issues are......

We still cannot get off the field on 3rd dn. We're only doing slightly better, allowing 3rd dn conversions 43% of the time as opposed to 47% of the time when we were historically bad in 2015. The good news is two teams are allowing over 50% on 3rd dn conversions this season one of which is the Bengals, 55% allowed. Who look like they've given up. So yay, maybe we won't be owners of a shitty anymore after this year.

Our LBing, both inside and outside have issues.

Mason) Agreed he's slow (like Alfred Morris slow) which is too bad because his instincts at times seem good.

Brown) I'm beginning to wonder if he's hurt or mailing it in. While Brown is plenty fast, he never could cover worth a shit, but with his speed he was able to make some plays. He's made very few plays this year. What's really alarming though is how fall he's fell off when it comes to tackles. Zach Brown Unless he racks up some hellified tackles these last 5 games. He's gonna be significantly off those tackling #s from the last 2 years.

Both RK and Preston have been disappointing pass rush-wise and neither are very good run defense-wise. Both are slow as well.

We wouldn't allow our best CB, Quinton Dunbar, a chance to get 100% healthy or close to it this year once he got hurt. And I don't believe we've done him any favors by continuing to play him. Same thing could be said about some of our OL and Paul Richardson as we continued to play them when they were hurt.

We need a DB that's not scared to hit/tackle.

 

[tomcat1]

The interior DL hasn't played well during this stretch, but other issues are......

We still cannot get off the field on 3rd dn. We're only doing slightly better, allowing 3rd dn conversions 43% of the time as opposed to 47% of the time when we were historically bad in 2015. The good news is two teams are allowing over 50% on 3rd dn conversions this season one of which is the Bengals, 55% allowed. Who look like they've given up. So yay, maybe we won't be owners of a shitty anymore after this year.

Our LBing, both inside and outside have issues.

Mason) Agreed he's slow (like Alfred Morris slow) which is too bad because his instincts at times seem good.

Brown) I'm beginning to wonder if he's hurt or mailing it in. While Brown is plenty fast, he never could cover worth a shit, but with his speed he was able to make some plays. He's made very few plays this year. What's really alarming though is how fall he's fell off when it comes to tackles. Zach Brown Unless he racks up some hellified tackles these last 5 games. He's gonna be significantly off those tackling #s from the last 2 years.

Both RK and Preston have been disappointing pass rush-wise and neither are very good run defense-wise. Both are slow as well.



We wouldn't allow our best CB, Quinton Dunbar, a chance to get 100% healthy or close to it this year once he got hurt. And I don't believe we've done him any favors by continuing to play him. Same thing could be said about some of our OL and Paul Richardson as we continued to play them when they were hurt.

We need a DB that's not scared to hit/tackle.

Well said about our defense not being able to get off the field on 3rd down!

 

[Stymietee]

1. So are we going to be active in free agency with respects to filling some of these holes?

2. Are you guys ready to see what value we can get for Kerrigan yet, like last year, or, do we endure another year of STFU Sty and hold onto him for another season of diminishing trade value?

3. Is it time to see what more playing time for our youngsters at LB'er will reveal to us? ( RA and SDH)

4. Despite his troubles, real or perceived, is Rueben Foster better than what we currently have?

 

[Breed]

1. So are we going to be active in free agency with respects to filling some of these holes?

2. Are you guys ready to see what value we can get for Kerrigan yet, like last year, or, do we endure another year of STFU Sty and hold onto him for another season of diminishing trade value?

3. Is it time to see what more playing time for our youngsters at LB'er will reveal to us? ( RA and SDH)

4. Despite his troubles, real or perceived, is Rueben Foster better than what we currently have?

1. Whether these holes or other holes are there any other choices besides drafting and gulp, knock wood, trading?

2. STFU, Sty.

3. No seriously far as #2. Move him for what? What do you expect we can garner for a slow-ish, perhaps past his prime, never been a great run defender OLB.

real 3. Sure, why not. Maybe Hamilton is a gamer. Can't say I expect a whole lot out of Anderson, but who knows.

4. I don't know if he's better, but damn he's had a bunch of hiccups, bumps in the road, detours, so on n so forth. I guess it couldn't hurt to kick the tires. If he impresses no doubt someone will come up with a narrative along the 2nd chances theme and there you go.

 

[Sportster 72]

1. So are we going to be active in free agency with respects to filling some of these holes?

2. Are you guys ready to see what value we can get for Kerrigan yet, like last year, or, do we endure another year of STFU Sty and hold onto him for another season of diminishing trade value?

3. Is it time to see what more playing time for our youngsters at LB'er will reveal to us? ( RA and SDH)

4. Despite his troubles, real or perceived, is Rueben Foster better than what we currently have?

Trade the guy with the same amount of sacks as Khalil Mack? I thought guys like that were valuable.

 

[Breed]

Trade the guy with the same amount of sacks as Khalil Mack? I thought guys like that were valuable.

Mack has played in 2 less games this year than RK. He's also 3 years younger than RK and is a much better run defender.

 

[Breed]

Trade the guy with the same amount of sacks as Khalil Mack? I thought guys like that were valuable.

Trade the guy with the same amount of sacks as Khalil Mack? I thought guys like that were valuable.

Mack has played in 2 less games this year than RK. He's also 3 years younger than RK and is a much better run defender.

 

[j_y19]

1. So are we going to be active in free agency with respects to filling some of these holes?

2. Are you guys ready to see what value we can get for Kerrigan yet, like last year, or, do we endure another year of STFU Sty and hold onto him for another season of diminishing trade value?

3. Is it time to see what more playing time for our youngsters at LB'er will reveal to us? ( RA and SDH)

4. Despite his troubles, real or perceived, is Rueben Foster better than what we currently have?

We are going to be very limited in FA over the next 2 years due to our cap situation with Alex Smith. So FA probably isn’t going to be the solution.

As far as Kerrigan, what do you think we could get for him? Honestly, the time to trade a player like Kerrigan is after the season starts but before the trade deadline. That is when you get the most bang as playoff bound teams looking to make a SB run pay extra to fill immediate holes.

 

[skinsdad62]

1. So are we going to be active in free agency with respects to filling some of these holes?

2. Are you guys ready to see what value we can get for Kerrigan yet, like last year, or, do we endure another year of STFU Sty and hold onto him for another season of diminishing trade value?

3. Is it time to see what more playing time for our youngsters at LB'er will reveal to us? ( RA and SDH)

4. Despite his troubles, real or perceived, is Rueben Foster better than what we currently have?

i think its time to get hamilton on the field more and move toward JHC , yes i woild go after young foster

i dont think smith and RK are our big problems but yeah i would get a younger edge guy in there , maybe 2

truthfully i dont think the team would get rid of RK

as far as FA goes i wouldnt dabble in it much . we need to retain sherf , and mabye dix . crowder we can keep but he wont get a big contract , smith could walk depending on contract

we need to have another productive draft and taking a qb is a killer to us because now we are set back

 

[Sportster 72]

Yeah I have heard all the arguments before. I have heard them about the QB that was here. Mack is a good player and I am pulling Sty's string more than anything.

Yes Kerrigan crashes down ala Dexter at times but he isn't as bad at the run as some of you think. I have noted several times how the Allen, Smith, Brown side of the defense has been getting blown up and Ironman has been making the tackle 7 yards downfield on his off side.

Say whatever you want about Kerrigan, I believe he has two more sacks than Mack over that same period. But what the hell lets trade the best OLB we have much like we let the best QB walk.