Vic Fangio's second year defenses and beyond

Originally posted by dankmeistr:

Originally posted by Joecool:

Originally posted by sachie23:
I'm so pissed at most of the defense (Willis, Bowman, a few other excluded). All they had to do was not completely suck and they would have won. Didn't have to play good, could have been kind of bad. But they completely sucked. No pass rush. Terrible secondary play. Suck.

Actually, the pass rush was there on some of Flacco's big plays but the dude slipped out of our hands, throws up a few prayers and they were answered. Aside from the power outage, Ravens had everything going there way.

People saying the power outage helped our momentum need to rewatch the game. Our offense was driving down BAL's throats nearly every drive before the outage. We just made the dumb mistakes, a kick-off return, and those prayers by Flacco.

I agree. Our offense executed well, for the most part, with the exception of the fumble and interception. Those two turnovers unfortunately led to 14 points. I just don't understand how the defense allowed Flacco to slip away so many times. He's not that mobile and our linebackers should be able to run him down without a problem. We got pressure, we just didn't finish the plays.

My main concern is how the defense came out flat in the first halves of the Atlanta game and during the Super Bowl. This needs to be fixed ASAP. With our offense and defense, we should be burying other teams rather easily.

Dan
49ers Fan in NC

I don't think both the INT or the Fumble led to a score. Only one did. The other, we stopped them on that fake FG...I think that was the INT.

Yea it wasn't just the super bowl. Resides the Cardinals game the defense was a liability in every other game down the stretch. The DB's have terrible ball skills that's why the prayers were answered. They just can't locate and make plays on the balls. And yea the pass rush was lacking and the times they got there they couldn't even get Flacco down. And he's a guy not known for mobility at all. Just a horrible defensive performance all around.

Yeah, there isn't much adjustment from our backfield when the ball is in the air. We scream "Ball!!" when it's in the air right,? and coach to change technique when this is heard from a familiar voice, right? Haven't seen that a lot. Catches are made with our back to the ball, and we also put our hands up without targeting the ball in flight a little too often I think.

you have two great backers who can rush the passer and they are setting around playing checkers while the ravens qb has all the f**king time in the world. i just love how the whole god damn coaching staff played not to win on sunday

Originally posted by cciowa:
you have two great backers who can rush the passer and they are setting around playing checkers while the ravens qb has all the f**king time in the world. i just love how the whole god damn coaching staff played not to win on sunday

What pissed me off the most was the "we give up" play calling after we stopped them on that fake FG. We were, once again, in prime position to take control of the game and we call it too safe.

When we need some serious momentum we don't need to call it safe inside our own 20.

What I actually noticed a lot in the playoffs is that it wasn't always the passrush that was the problem, or at least the problems in the secondary were not because of a lack of a pass rush. There were many times where I saw that we brought pressure but the QB was able to get rid of the ball in about 2 seconds to a wide open receiver. There is no excuse for a receiver to be wide open in 2 seconds. You cannot expect your pass rush to get to the QB in that short amount of time. I don't know if it was scheme or the individual play of our DB's, but something was awefully wrong in the secondary.

Originally posted by Joecool:

Originally posted by cciowa:
you have two great backers who can rush the passer and they are setting around playing checkers while the ravens qb has all the f**king time in the world. i just love how the whole god damn coaching staff played not to win on sunday

What pissed me off the most was the "we give up" play calling after we stopped them on that fake FG. We were, once again, in prime position to take control of the game and we call it too safe.

When we need some serious momentum we don't need to call it safe inside our own 20.

joe is the one who made me realize how under used our two all pro backers are,, there is no f**king excuse for that. if all the coaches come back next year, i hope that Jh has a come to tebow meeting about some of these issues in regards to coaching that have been bubbling all year long and f**king blew up in our face sunday on the biggest stage of all

I'm not for or against Fangio. His style and scheme are very basic. I think we underestimate just how much talent is on our team. I think something like 6 All-Pro defenders. It's really just a classic "bend but don't break" defense. What makes us so good at it is that we don't allow teams to run the ball and we tackle extremely well so receivers can't get YAC and the offense is forced in a 3rd and long. I think we're really good at keeping things in front of us... up until the NFC-CG we hadn't allowed a 40+ yard reception. I don't know if that's the result of outstanding coaching or just a really technical secondary, though. Could explain why the Saints wanted Ed Donnatell so bad.

Originally posted by cciowa:

Originally posted by Joecool:

Originally posted by cciowa:
you have two great backers who can rush the passer and they are setting around playing checkers while the ravens qb has all the f**king time in the world. i just love how the whole god damn coaching staff played not to win on sunday

What pissed me off the most was the "we give up" play calling after we stopped them on that fake FG. We were, once again, in prime position to take control of the game and we call it too safe.

When we need some serious momentum we don't need to call it safe inside our own 20.

joe is the one who made me realize how under used our two all pro backers are,, there is no f**king excuse for that. if all the coaches come back next year, i hope that Jh has a come to tebow meeting about some of these issues in regards to coaching that have been bubbling all year long and f**king blew up in our face sunday on the biggest stage of all

There's just too much talent on our defense to keep them in coverage most of the game. Isn't the RT usually the slower but better run-blocking tackle? Why don't we line Aldon Smith at the LDE spot to burn that RT on obvious passing downs?

I don't know, the defense is too vanilla. If we are a bend but don't break anyways, why not try to be more aggressive between the 20's?

Originally posted by Joecool:
There's just too much talent to on our defense to keep them in coverage most of the game. Isn't the RT usually the slower but better run-blocking tackle? Why don't we line Aldon Smith at the LDE spot to burn that RT on obvious passing downs?

I don't know, the defense is too vanilla. If we are a bend but don't break anyways, why not try to be more aggressive between the 20's?

aldon smith needs a giant kick in the ass in my opinion but thats a whole other story. if i hear him say he is tired one more time,,,,,,god damn it all to hell

Originally posted by cciowa:

Originally posted by Joecool:
There's just too much talent to on our defense to keep them in coverage most of the game. Isn't the RT usually the slower but better run-blocking tackle? Why don't we line Aldon Smith at the LDE spot to burn that RT on obvious passing downs?

I don't know, the defense is too vanilla. If we are a bend but don't break anyways, why not try to be more aggressive between the 20's?

aldon smith needs a giant kick in the ass in my opinion but thats a whole other story. if i hear him say he is tired one more time,,,,,,god damn it all to hell

Why not have Brooks and Aldon both over the RT on obvious passing downs? I don't know, we don't do any flood rushes or force an OL to make a complicated decision on who to block. We rush at them straight up even when we blitz and rely too heavy on the LB talent to get there. We need to confuse the OL more.

We're going to have to draft D-Line, Secondary and OLB's, and get aggressive with our defense. Being able to rush 4 is a great thing... when it works. We need to learn how to send the f**king house and make opposing QB's fear us. This will help out the secondary big time, but they also need to brush up on coverage skills.

This defense literally played like one of the worst units in the league from the Rams game on Dec. 2 right through the playoffs.

1) We need more/better rotation on the d-line. In my mind, Justin Smith is probably the only player doesn't need to come out. The rest got worn down as the season went on and it showed big time. Aldon Smith especially.

2) Our safeties hit like trucks, but that's about it. Although I am in favor of bringing Goldson back, I'm not too much of a fan to admit that both he and Whitner are are a bit overrated. Again, they clean clocks for sure but they are FREQUENTLY lost in coverage. The media may have hyped our defense but other teams weren't fooled at all. Not hard to figure out why we gave up so many big plays over the middle.

3) We need an upgrade at CB. Not saying he has to be an all-world prototypical "shut down corner" although that would be nice (hoping for Revis). At this point, I'd settle for someone that can handle himself in press coverage and remembers to turn around when the freakin' ball is in the air (Chris Culliver, I'm looking at you). Apart from Danny Amendola, I actually think Carlos Rogers had a good year. I like Brown too, although he does tend to have the occasional lapse.

Doesn't matter whether it comes through the draft or free agency but we need another quality starter at corner BAD.

4) Personnel aside, I would like to see us blitz more. It seems to me like whenever we aren't able to get pressure with four, we don't do anything to compensate. We just keep running our guys into a wall in hopes that something will change.

I wonder if Cully can make a switch to FS and move Goldson to SS or just have them be do-it-all safeties.

Originally posted by Joecool:
I wonder if Cully can make a switch to FS and move Goldson to SS or just have them be do-it-all safeties.

That would be more of an experiment, and I'm not sure we really want to experiment with players right now. We need to shore up the DL, so we have better DL rotation which will allow us to bring more pressure, and if we can address the secondary, it would be good to have a true shut down corner.