Shawntae Spencer

Spencer has always been a pretty good cover corner, but he has now become a very good one. I still wouldn't expect a lot of interceptions or big plays from him, but preventing the opposing receiver from making catches or taking a WR away from the other team is analogous to some turnovers/big plays. I still think that pass that he deflected at the endzone against the Colts this past weekend was one of the most beautiful examples of a cover corner that I have seen in a long, long time. That interception that Falcons CB made last night was right up there too.

Originally posted by fzrdave:
Spencer has always been a pretty good cover corner, but he has now become a very good one. I still wouldn't expect a lot of interceptions or big plays from him, but preventing the opposing receiver from making catches or taking a WR away from the other team is analogous to some turnovers/big plays. I still think that pass that he deflected at the endzone against the Colts this past weekend was one of the most beautiful examples of a cover corner that I have seen in a long, long time. That interception that Falcons CB made last night was right up there too.

That swat by spencer was straight classic and pure technique. He did not even put a hand in the receivers back to spring himself forward. If you wanna be a DB that should be in the coaches film.

Didn't see any RECENT threads on Shawntae in a search, so I thought I'd open up a discussion on him.

I've felt over the past two seasons, Shawntae Spencer has been our best cornerback. The guy doesn't get a lot of fanfare though, but how would you rate his play this season?

My thought is... if you never hear a cornerback's name and he has minimal tackles, he's doing a pretty good job, with quarterbacks choosing to go elsewhere. I hear Nate's name a lot more often than I hear Shawntae's. To be fair to Nate though, he's still considered the #1 cornerback and, thus, faces opposing #1 WRs.

But it boggles my mind that our secondary is so bad. I have a lot of faith in Shawntae Spencer, while Clements is at least decent. With those two as our cornerbacks, where is the secondary breakdown?

- Are our safeties that inexperienced?
- Are the nickel and dime backs that bad?
- Is our pass-rush that non-existent?
- Or am I simply overrating Spencer and Clements?
- Or is it Manusky's scheme that puts out secondary in a bad spot?

Spencer has always been one of my favorite players...

out of Ahmed Plummer, Jason Webster, and Mike Rumph...he has been the one who has had a longer lasting career.

guy is tall, fast, and can hit.

it just seems like these last couple of years, he has finally set himself up to make breaks to intercept passes...instead of just always knocking them down like he use to.

Very good player. Unfair that some clump him in with the disappointing secondary (mostly due to poor safety play), but I guess that's the way it goes. I'm glad he's on the team.

I rarely ever see him get beat.

It comes down to scheme. Our CB's line up 10 yards off WR's allowing quick passes/screens/slants to happen without much difficulty. When do you see Revis or Asomugha playing so far off the WR's? Rarely if ever. They play physical, bumping off routes making it hard for QB's and WR's to get into rhythm.
Also pass rush, we send so many people in to blitz it sickens me how long it takes to get close to the QB. We run a 3-4 D. That means 3 down lineman rush and one LB disguises himself and rushes. I can call the LB's that blitz every play, it's too obvious. With that the QB has time to pass with less players in coverage and he knows where the rush is coming from.
Secondary:
Mays- young mistakes are expected.
Glodson- In 7 games the "ballhawk" has not touched the ball, gets picked on in crunch time, and dose not now how to tackle.
Clements- Overaggressive but besides getting burnt he is a great CB, also great in the run game.
Spencer- I would say our best coverage CB.
James- Garbage, personally I would play T. Brown before him.

I'm afraid that Bradford will tear our secondary up.

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~ He doesn't cover very well.
~ He doesn't tackle or hit at all.

He's vastly overrated on the WZ. An average CB at best. He's no star. People just don't hate on him because he doesn't have the large contract of Nate Clements. They don't like what Clements gets paid but tend to overlook the fact that Specner is often toast out there.

Originally posted by SanDiego49er:
~ He doesn't cover very well. Debatable.
~ He doesn't tackle or hit at all. True

He's vastly overrated on the WZ. An average CB at best. He's no star. People just don't hate on him because he doesn't have the large contract of Nate Clements. They don't like what Clements gets paid but tend to overlook the fact that Specner is often toast out there.

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I think we have two solid corners but you would think one of our secondary coaches or Manusky would stop lining these guys up so far off the ball (it's not as bad as it use to be) and tell them to stop biting on inside routes because it's not worth it. Obviously, they could be better but every team's corners get burnt. You get the good with the bad with these guys. They shut down receivers but also give up big days to a lot of unknowns. Our main problem is the big plays. Our safeties are built more for run defense and they don't fit well with our CBs. Goldson is probably the biggest problem. Mays has had a few big plays given up but he is already as good as if not better than Lewis. I wouldn't pay Goldson and I am not sure Reggie Smith is the answer.

Plus we don't have much depth. Brown hasn't done well this year and Will James is average. I'd like to see Adams get a shot at moving up to #3. I think we could use another CB but FS is a problem as well. Doesn't help when we can't get a pass rush. It's been debated for years but we might be better off getting a pass rusher (OLB/DE) instead of going CB. Don't like how Manusky (who blitzed a lot in per seaosn) doesn't blitz much and often sends only 3 guys. That's the main benefit of the 3-4, you can disguise your blitzers and the QB gets confused (remember Manning last year?). At times we had everyone standing up, guys dropping back, LBs coming at Manning, LBs dropping back. We played him perfectly and held him without a TD pass. Yet, for some reason we go back to our safe defense and let it cost us games. I am sure Sing says play bend don't break because our offense can't keep up.

Originally posted by Gore_21:
I think we have two solid corners but you would think one of our secondary coaches or Manusky would stop lining these guys up so far off the ball (it's not as bad as it use to be) and tell them to stop biting on inside routes because it's not worth it. Obviously, they could be better but every team's corners get burnt. You get the good with the bad with these guys. They shut down receivers but also give up big days to a lot of unknowns. Our main problem is the big plays. Our safeties are built more for run defense and they don't fit well with our CBs. Goldson is probably the biggest problem. Mays has had a few big plays given up but he is already as good as if not better than Lewis. I wouldn't pay Goldson and I am not sure Reggie Smith is the answer.

Plus we don't have much depth. Brown hasn't done well this year and Will James is average. I'd like to see Adams get a shot at moving up to #3. I think we could use another CB but FS is a problem as well. Doesn't help when we can't get a pass rush. It's been debated for years but we might be better off getting a pass rusher (OLB/DE) instead of going CB. Don't like how Manusky (who blitzed a lot in per seaosn) doesn't blitz much and often sends only 3 guys. That's the main benefit of the 3-4, you can disguise your blitzers and the QB gets confused (remember Manning last year?). At times we had everyone standing up, guys dropping back, LBs coming at Manning, LBs dropping back. We played him perfectly and held him without a TD pass. Yet, for some reason we go back to our safe defense and let it cost us games. I am sure Sing says play bend don't break because our offense can't keep up.

Basically what I said.....

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Originally posted by 49ersNoKaOi:

Basically what I said.....

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Sorry, didn't really read the above posts. I went back and read it and totally agree.

To add onto my post...
It's not as bad as it use to be because we occasionally let our CBs play up but mostly they play back and especially in the 2 minute situation. We have physical corners yet we let them play 10 yards off the line. Let them get up and jam the WRs. When they have plenty of time we let them work the way down the field 10 yards at a time and eventually kick the game winner. You would think a bunch of professional coaches would be smarter.

Edit: I think we went into prevent with like 4 plus minutes left during the Carolina game.

And as for Goldson last year we put up with his missed tackles and spotty coverage because he had 3FF, 4INTs and 2 sacks. This year he hasn't 0FF, 0INTs, 0 sacks (game close on one that I think Smith helped him with).

Oh, and I think COMMUNICATION is a big part of the problem. Anyone see Spencer pass off LLoyd on the big TD catch to Mays and Mays ended up getting behind? Wondering why Spencer passed him off when he then stopped and didn't cover anybody (nobody was on that side of the field). I mentioned in another thread it's like the elementary school play ground... I don't feel like covering him, here you cover him.

Originally posted by 49ersNoKaOi:
It comes down to scheme. Our CB's line up 10 yards off WR's allowing quick passes/screens/slants to happen without much difficulty. When do you see Revis or Asomugha playing so far off the WR's? Rarely if ever. They play physical, bumping off routes making it hard for QB's and WR's to get into rhythm.
Also pass rush, we send so many people in to blitz it sickens me how long it takes to get close to the QB. We run a 3-4 D. That means 3 down lineman rush and one LB disguises himself and rushes. I can call the LB's that blitz every play, it's too obvious. With that the QB has time to pass with less players in coverage and he knows where the rush is coming from.
Secondary:
Mays- young mistakes are expected.
Glodson- In 7 games the "ballhawk" has not touched the ball, gets picked on in crunch time, and dose not now how to tackle.
Clements- Overaggressive but besides getting burnt he is a great CB, also great in the run game.
Spencer- I would say our best coverage CB.
James- Garbage, personally I would play T. Brown before him.

I'm afraid that Bradford will tear our secondary up.

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i really dont understand why James is on the field?? he sucks

He's average. Looks good then looks bad. To be a called a good corner you can't be getting beat by David Gettis.

I like your criteria for determining if a CB is any good, Wubbie. Those really are the only solid metrics a television viewer has.

Frankly, nobody has a clue about what is going on in the secondary because 90% of secondary play doesn't make it to television. Moreover, even the best corners are often at the mercy of their safeties to provide the correct top coverage. So at the end of the day, unless you're a season ticket holder, it's tenuous to draw conclusions about what is going on off camera.

Shawntae is what he is: a decent #2.

The personnel we have on defense seems like such a mish mash of schemes, I'm not even entirely sure what the hell we're trying to run anymore:

I've heard our 3-4 described as a version of the more conservative bend but don't break Fairbanks-Bullough 2 gap system, except we have a Nose Tackle that plays an awful lot like a 1 gap. This leads me to believe that maybe we're aiming to be more of a Bum Phillips style 1 gap 3-4, which would explain why our LB's are called upon to take on lineman as much as they do. Who knows, maybe we're a hybrid lol! We can call it the Nol-Man-Sing F'n thing. The 3-4 godfathers would roll in their mafuggin graves if they ever read those last couple sentences. In either system we don't have an outside pass rusher, so both are doomed to give up a sh@t load of yards. Call it what you want; we're bend but don't break.

Then you take a look at the rest of our DB's, and it's pretty obvious why we have the late game break downs that we do. Our highest paid corner is definitely a Tampa 2 fit. Great tackler/not too quick. Can only play zone, which is probably why he takes such stupid risks, because I'm convinced he has his eyes in the backfield at least 95% of the time...I also like cookies, so I really can't be too hard on the guy. Let's be honest though; if the pass rush did it's job, the negative consequences of his gambles would be far less and he'd probably be in the pro bowl. Still, you pay someone over 10 mil./season and you expect a little bang for your buck. I haven't seen enough from the rest of the corners to say one way or the other. They're learning...

Mays is also too young to bag on. He's a lump of clay and it's this coaching staff's job to mold him into a pro. He's got talent...

Goldson is the best kept secret in the NFL...just ask him, I'm sure he'd tell you. I don't know what this guy's done (or thinks he's done) to earn an extension, but as far as I'm concerned he can catch the next flight Seattle.

For me it keeps coming back to pass rush, but we'd be remiss not to upgrade at FS. I think this is 1 spot we just have to give up trying to draft. Experience required IMHO. There's some good FA's available this off season. Hopefully we can land one with some speed and coverage skills.