Let's Talk Defense!

Originally posted by Jersey9er:

Originally posted by ninertico:
Hey N!

Stop making sense!

Spot on as always. I ask you something N, that I contemplated during the KC game.

I remember just how badly the NO O torched us with screens and draws to Reggie and I figured KC would mirror that scheme. I was right and in droves. So, why didn't Manusky change his formations and schemes to deal with the speed and holes?

Move away from the basic 3-4 back to the Hybrid, but with three of our fastest LBs in Manny, Patrick and Navarro staying in the middle attacking the holes and speed of the KC backs. Against their scheme, the Hybrid would have been better it seems. I believe we played the mostly in a Cover-2. Am I correct in that?

WTH! Why stay with a scheme that sends your best backers out in coverage? That made no sense. Use your best front four to penetrate, use your fastest LBs to scour the line plugging holes while our DBs go man on man. Yea, I know with our secondary? Risk the edges? Cassel only had a great game cause of the trickery. He didn't do well before that game as a passer to his WRs.

I don't know why we went Cover-2?

Wassup Tico, i know u werent talkin to me, but yeah they did run mostly cover 2. Cuz on nfl gameday, they said we had our best lb in coverage for most of the game, which made him pretty ineffective.

How's the East, my Niner Bro?

Yea, wasn't that special on Sunday? I kept telling my wife, WTH are they (D) doing and why are we worried about their ineffective edge passing attack? It didn't make sense.

N is right though, that our edge rushers are just not cutting it...AGAIN!!!! I love Manusky's schemes at times, being creative like he was against AZ on MNF. He needs to do more with that. Our front needs more penetration while holding their relative positions so the LBs can attack.

Now against ATL, they have to worry about Matt's attack through the air with White and Tony G. Then they got some running ability too.

What will Manusky do to corral the reigns of this D and focus them to execute better?

This D should be keeping us in games when the O is down like the Steelers. That's why this season is so puzzling with the complete unraveling of the team on all sides.

Still, I have seen this team pull it together after serious adversity. We will know if the players are "buying" in to the new plan or if its just another "rah rah" session that frankly their tired of hearing.

We shall see.

Originally posted by Tigerlaw:
Our defense plays "bend but don't break" or in other words "soft"

We try and take away big plays and make the other team march down the field slowly. If the offense has any miscues (penalty...incompletes etc) odds are the drive will stall. If the offense is efficient and takes the underneath stuff they succeed. If the offense has speedy playmakers that thrive on underneath stuff they eat us alive.

When we do blitz it is not very creative. Teams like the Jets/Steelers etc make great use of overload blitzes. You don't need to send 8 guys at the QB to have a mismatch...if you send 3 at the LT (2 LBs and the DE) someone should break through.

GREAT POINT.

Originally posted by Jersey9er:

Originally posted by ninertico:
Hey N!

Stop making sense!

Spot on as always. I ask you something N, that I contemplated during the KC game.

I remember just how badly the NO O torched us with screens and draws to Reggie and I figured KC would mirror that scheme. I was right and in droves. So, why didn't Manusky change his formations and schemes to deal with the speed and holes?

Move away from the basic 3-4 back to the Hybrid, but with three of our fastest LBs in Manny, Patrick and Navarro staying in the middle attacking the holes and speed of the KC backs. Against their scheme, the Hybrid would have been better it seems. I believe we played the mostly in a Cover-2. Am I correct in that?

WTH! Why stay with a scheme that sends your best backers out in coverage? That made no sense. Use your best front four to penetrate, use your fastest LBs to scour the line plugging holes while our DBs go man on man. Yea, I know with our secondary? Risk the edges? Cassel only had a great game cause of the trickery. He didn't do well before that game as a passer to his WRs.

I don't know why we went Cover-2?

Wassup Tico, i know u werent talkin to me, but yeah they did run mostly cover 2. Cuz on nfl gameday, they said we had our best lb in coverage for most of the game, which made him pretty ineffective.

Yup, that's correct. The bigger issue is that this has been a problem of ours for several years now and has never been fixed. True, the scheme kept calling for the ILB's be be miles back in coverage which, as always, left simple flare outs to the RB's who weren't even touched until 10 yards down the middle of the field. We have a tendency NOT to cover RB's off the LOS but rather, wait until they catch the ball and the try to catch them in the open field, one on one, often. Another issus is team tackling. There was a time when as soon as the offense touched the ball, you'd see a sea of red. Now, I watch one guy making tackle and a few others literally, standing around. Anyone else notice that? That's on coaching (and motivation of players NOT trying to get injured). With the exception of a few guys, most of our players on defense are pussies and soft and don't play with much or any passion (unless it's a nationally televised game or in their contract years, of course). That said, how bad does Manny, Goldson & Franklin look now? This is their contract years and they are blowing. Turn the page.

So how do you stop a screen pass? The 3-4, like any defense has its holes. You've seen how easy it is to attack the middle of the field and how effective screens are esp. to the SAM side. Once NO and KC exploited the edges with screens, they then ran up the gut on us the rest of the game. For whatever reason, our OLB's line up at the LOS and essentially, plat pseduo DE positions focused on stringing out running plays. That's fine when Manny/Haralson are blocking one man. But with a screen, you have a few guys out there and TKO is too slow to get over, Willis has to fight through a ton of traffic and Manny is useless if he's moving backwards and at shedding blocks on the run. The only thing you can do is do what Brooks did and that is to diagnose the play instantly, throw your man off and tackle the RB for a loss the second after he catches the pass. Do that a few times with good OLB play and they will stop uisng that play. I can not ephasize how important the OLB positions are in the 3-4...way more then Willis' MIKE position.