Defensive Analysis thread (Preseason Week 1)

Originally posted by NCommand:

Originally posted by jreff22:
Way too much cushion for the CB's
Roman doesn't need to be here....R Smith you have my vote
Pass rush needs major improvement
Run D needs to clog faster and get to the ball
McKillop needs work but looks the part
Hudson should be on the final 53
Did we play it safe today.....I think so
We played good but improvement can be made with the current personnel

WE NEED TO STOP GIVING AWAY 3RD DOWNS!!

Yeah, this was our ode to Nolan...super vanilla defense, predictable, unimaginative, reactive, conservative and if not for the individual plays (INT's), we could have been down big time. The opposition racked up huge TOP and keeping drives alive. 3rd down defense was pathetic again and we continued to rely on the secondary to get any pressure on the QB (and we still couldn't). Again, short yardage defense is very weak.

Brooks looks explosive and for all the talk of him not having motivation, he hustled his ass off today and did a nice job of causing an INT, containing his edge and hustling down field to make tackles. He looks the part at OLB so far. Harris looked solid too.

Scott is Derek Smith 2.0. Enough said. That was Singletary's pick.

Lawson, once again, over ran a play that resulted in big yardage though he made a nice play recovering.

Defense overall looked very slow.

D-line was dominated including Smith and the rest of the starters. We severely lack a NT (again)...huge runs inside and off tackle.

And to add insult to injury, Nolan's defense looked aggressive. WTF? Haha.

Let's keep perspective - it's only pre-season but it sure does look identical to the defense we've run for years with the same exact problems d/t ignoring the NT, LDE & OLB positions (e.g. front 7).

I miss the hybrid LMAO

Great post. You nailed it!

I was at the game, and surprised and impressed with the work of Brooks. Brooks played well on ST--he can really move for a guy his size. And at OLB, he looked good, but inexperienced. He dropped back in coverage, held his position against bigger OL against the run, and tried to pressure the QB. Mostly, you could see alot of effort on his part. He needs to work on pass rush technique, but seems to have the tools and the motivation.

I was really impressed with Harris. Guy's not that big, but he's a stud. He flattened Sims on one pass that Sims just barely got off and held his own against bigger OL all night.

Same with McKillop. Guy can play. One run play where Brooks got sucked in by the OT, leaving the flank wide open, McKillop goes out and makes the tackle behind him. Great instincts, really good speed to get outside on that play. Seems like he was all over the field.

The other guy who impressed me was Mitchell. He's really huge and he's got a non stop motor. He gave Denver's OL fits. He seemed better than Sopoaga, who got pushed around at NT all night. Very disappointed in his play, although really, its the same old Sopoaga. He plays too upright sometimes and gets pushed around by a single OL.

I like that kid McKillop. He is just a pure FOOTBALL PLAYER. Hella funny...couple times I saw OL shove the kid and he just flew like a rubbber doll. Mckillop, being who he is, did not even retaliate. Good kid!!! Our middle may be set for the future...now we jsut need to figure out the OLB situation?!

Originally posted by oldninerdude:
Great post. You nailed it!

I was at the game, and surprised and impressed with the work of Brooks. Brooks played well on ST--he can really move for a guy his size. And at OLB, he looked good, but inexperienced. He dropped back in coverage, held his position against bigger OL against the run, and tried to pressure the QB. Mostly, you could see alot of effort on his part. He needs to work on pass rush technique, but seems to have the tools and the motivation.

I was really impressed with Harris. Guy's not that big, but he's a stud. He flattened Sims on one pass that Sims just barely got off and held his own against bigger OL all night.

Same with McKillop. Guy can play. One run play where Brooks got sucked in by the OT, leaving the flank wide open, McKillop goes out and makes the tackle behind him. Great instincts, really good speed to get outside on that play. Seems like he was all over the field.

The other guy who impressed me was Mitchell. He's really huge and he's got a non stop motor. He gave Denver's OL fits. He seemed better than Sopoaga, who got pushed around at NT all night. Very disappointed in his play, although really, its the same old Sopoaga. He plays too upright sometimes and gets pushed around by a single OL.

OND - Great to see you on here! I'm glad you saw that too re: Brooks/Harris. Do our backups look better then our starters? I'm not sure how to take that quite yet.

I'm going to have to go back and watch tape of McKillop more closely as it seems my initial impressions were not so positive. I may have focused mostly on the big pas play against him and his inside game. But, that's what game-tape is for!

I'd like to watch more of the d-line too b/c I didn't see ANY push at all from any of the front 3...nor backups either but I like your analysis of Mitchell. I'll dive into the trenches for sure. I was mostly focused on the 4 LB's last night.

There were some encouraging play though - like Bly a lot. Aside from Clements playing 30 yards off his receivers, when he was near a WR, he was aggressive. Goldson looked solid to me and you can feel his presence (Roman has no business being on the field). Did M. Lewis even play? If he did, he was non-existent.

For the first time in ages, I saw the Niner's use CB's to blitz. That was encouraging! I'd still like to see them use some inside LB's to rush...can't remember if I saw any or not. Smith looked like he was back in his comfort zone. I'm not sure about Jay Moore.

Mitchell was all over the place in the 4th quarter, granted it was against their 2nd-3rd stringers but the guy can play, is he eligible for the PS?

Originally posted by JohnnyMo49:
Mitchell was all over the place in the 4th quarter, granted it was against their 2nd-3rd stringers but the guy can play, is he eligible for the PS?

yea he commanded a double team a few times there. he definitely looks good for a rookie, actually i wanted us to draft him with our 7th rounder but we got him undrafted so im still happy. yes he is ps eligible.

Our pass rush is sssssccccaaaarrrryyyy! and I mean that in the worst way possible. All the opposing QB's might as well turn their timers up to 5 seconds when practicing to play against the niners D...

Our DBs looked great!

Originally posted by NinerGM:
I don't think the the lack of pass rush is a result of "scheme". Unless Smith and Haralson are purposely playing "half-speed" then we have nothing to worry about. One-on-one, those guys just weren't getting past blocks at all. You don't have to scheme beating your blocker one-on-one. The Bronco OT more than handled edge rushing - we essentially played a 4-3 out there. There was always a 4th rusher on every passing down. No pressure at all - I don't even remember the QB being hurried. You shouldn't need a scheme to hurry Orton.

I have to disagree GM. I think if this were a real game, Manusky would've moved the LB's and D-line around and looked for mismatches, or try to overload one side. But I also would not discredit the offense as it also through a lot of short and quick passes to account for the rush. You also have to take into account that Willis was not playing, who is our best LB covering underneath routes, hence giving Orton more of an option to get rid of it so quickly.

I saw improvement in the secondary and Spikes did a real nice job while P.Willis was sidelined. Those picks really saved the 49ers from letting denver run up the scoreboard on us and kept us in the game.

I seen alot of positives & also things that need to be worked on. Hope to see the defense improve thru preseason. Like to see Reggie Smith making plays. I like our DB depth overall. Our younger guys on DL look promising. Liked what i seen from Mitchell.

Originally posted by NCommand:

Originally posted by AKfanster:
For those of you that claim the D looked so bad cause we were playing vanilla........ SAVE THAT s**t. It doesn't excuse the OLBs lack of pressure. Lawson was clearly ineffective against the pass. He was easily blocked right out of passing plays just like he's been since being drafted. Haralson DID PLAY (despite what some are claiming) and he looked very sluggish. The overall scheme could be a little at fault, but it wasn't like these guys weren't trying. Did you see Lawson before the snaps? He was chomping at the bit to get after the QB, but he just couldn't get it done.
The bottom line is our OLBs couldn't beat the man in front of them.

On the flip side, this was just one game. One preseason game at that.
It's still early, so Sing/Manusky have time to get this fixed before the season. But if they cannot find the answer, we'll have another disappointing season.

Good point. Singletary was NOT happy and nor should he be - vanilla or not. I do agree the scheme was very Nolan-like and even more predictable with the OLB's up at the LOS the whole game - no movement, no switching, no pacing back and forth pre-snap looking to attack gaps, no OLB's really rushing inside, etc. Vanilla but something we have seen from our d-coordinators for ages now.

Either way, that does not excuse the fact that all of our front 7 got their nuts cracked in individual drills.

WORD.
This must have been Lawson's chance to prove he could rush the passer. FAIL.

Originally posted by AKfanster:

Originally posted by NCommand:

Originally posted by AKfanster:
For those of you that claim the D looked so bad cause we were playing vanilla........ SAVE THAT s**t. It doesn't excuse the OLBs lack of pressure. Lawson was clearly ineffective against the pass. He was easily blocked right out of passing plays just like he's been since being drafted. Haralson DID PLAY (despite what some are claiming) and he looked very sluggish. The overall scheme could be a little at fault, but it wasn't like these guys weren't trying. Did you see Lawson before the snaps? He was chomping at the bit to get after the QB, but he just couldn't get it done.
The bottom line is our OLBs couldn't beat the man in front of them.

On the flip side, this was just one game. One preseason game at that.
It's still early, so Sing/Manusky have time to get this fixed before the season. But if they cannot find the answer, we'll have another disappointing season.

Good point. Singletary was NOT happy and nor should he be - vanilla or not. I do agree the scheme was very Nolan-like and even more predictable with the OLB's up at the LOS the whole game - no movement, no switching, no pacing back and forth pre-snap looking to attack gaps, no OLB's really rushing inside, etc. Vanilla but something we have seen from our d-coordinators for ages now.

Either way, that does not excuse the fact that all of our front 7 got their nuts cracked in individual drills.

WORD.
This must have been Lawson's chance to prove he could rush the passer. FAIL.

Can anyone explain to me why D.Evans was playing NT last night (and getting abused)?

U mean why was are whole d line getting butt raped

The major complaint all the time is sacks, sacks, and sacks. Last year we were tied for 16th. It not the best but its not the worst. What we aren't paying enough attention to is takeaways IMO. We were 28th. Yes sacks sometimes leads to INT's and fumbles but not most of the time.

To fix this we need to work on stripping the ball and having our DB's do a better job of staying with the receiver and eyeing the QB. Last year I watched us too many times be there with the WR but not get a pick because we weren't look back at the QB's. Last night we accomplished that goal. Nate, Smith, and Bly did a great job of sticking to their guy and eyeing the QB, which resulted in an INT for each of them.

We are a far better team than people think. Were we -17 in turnover differential last year and 1 yard away from the playoffs. We need more turnovers!! It was the first game so there is more to come.

It's going to be hard to do that during the season when you have zero pass-rush.

Originally posted by WheresWaldo:
It's going to be hard to do that during the season when you have zero pass-rush.

Well, at least one of those ints last night was caused by the pass rush.