If our O is explosive, will our D drop off?

That Defense is only gonna get more dangerous

The 80s 9er teams were excellent in both O and D. It is do-able but the schemes change when the units even out. The D can afford to take more chances when the O is scoring, and the O can play more relaxed when the D shuts a team down. Last year we saw how careful Harbaugh was calling offensive games because he knew the D was ahead of the O and wanted to eliminate turnovers and mistakes due to inexperience. He will probably still be cautious but let Smith take more shots.

Last year the D played agressive but with good deep coverage...very few deep passes were completed against our D. Willis played back a great deal and the three linemen often handled the front by themselves...what an advantage that is! If the D gambles more this year I would expect more long TDs against our D but perhaps more sacks and more turnovers.

Injuries are the key and the 9ers can now weather injuries at almost every D position and most O positions. The team can't afford any injuries to the Smith's or the team will struggle (especially Justin and Alex).

Yeah, dtg, one thing that we all forget is, how lucky we were on injuries last yr...ie , not having them. Obvilously that excludes the one position where we all got wiped out, WR, but that shouldn't happen again. Essentially we finished the yr with vernon, frank, crbtre,hunter, williams as the only guys who could catch passes.

Contrast that to this yr:
Vernon & Delanie
moss & mario
crbs & Ginn
AJ & La Michael
plus frank, hunter, williams, and maybe Oswusu(sp?). That is a huge difference in # of players alone, let alone , talent. 5 vs 12 guys. jeez.

Don't get your hopes up. I'd expect incremental improvement but we are not the Saints, Pats, Packers, etc, by any method of measurement.

Good question (and point). If the offense sustained drives, ate the clock and started getting way ahead of opponents, I think it's natural for the defense to get complacent a bit and allow for some drop offs. But, we're getting a head of ourselves. I would think that we'll see some drop off this year naturally b/c of the unbelievably high level they played at last year esp. re: TO's. We should see more looks, packages, blitz schemes, etc...(e.g. more "risky" plays). So we'll get burned some but we may see a ROI on that scheme too.

To have a Defense to be considered as a Top 10 D's in NFL history last year, it is really hard to even come close to duplicating that.

We can still play 50% of last years outcome and still blow out teams if... (now that is a big IF) if We can score and convert on 3rd down.

if our offense sputters as it did last year we will not win as many games last year.

the D will be fine as long as there no injuries if anything they will be about the same or better. if the O does improve TOP will increase (or should ) and that should limit the other teams opportunities for gaining yards. that's at least one postive from a more efficient or explosive O. hopefully this team is playing from ahead most of the time making the other team a little more desperate. the niners are not the eagles and will not choke when ahead, fangio will make teams tap out without putting D in postions they cant deal with.

We are going to allow exactly 2 points next year. Alex fumbles a snap out of the endzone.

Everyone likes to reference last year, that we didn't install the whole defensive playbook. Well sometimes if it is to complicated, people start to think to much. This may cause some to think too much and mistakes may happen. Sometimes its best to keep it simple and let the players play. We will see if more is better.

Originally posted by WildBill:
Everyone likes to reference last year, that we didn't install the whole defensive playbook. Well sometimes if it is to complicated, people start to think to much. This may cause some to think too much and mistakes may happen. Sometimes its best to keep it simple and let the players play. We will see if more is better.

Yes, and Harbaugh does tend to get too cute at times with the offense but had to play an efficient game, while the D also played pretty basic last year. I wanted to see more blitzing but they may have been burned by them.

I think the major reason the D did so well last year is that three down linemen were able to shut down the run and allow everyone else to play back or laterally--and the 9ers have two of the fastest MLB in the NFL. Amazing how well the D did and I would expect them to be as good this year. They actually may have more depth, or at least more experienced depth. RJF gained good experience, as did Grant. The two rookie OLB/DEs look to be interesting.

I think we will see more blitzes and disguises from Fangio. They got good pressure from the front last year so he didn't call a lot of them. But I think in part too, it required coordination and timing from his defensive guys. Not sure that they had time for that last year. Should be fun watching the defense this season.

Originally posted by bzborow1:

Don't get your hopes up. I'd expect incremental improvement but we are not the Saints, Pats, Packers, etc, by any method of measurement.

No. We are better. The Saints!!