Let's talk 49ers Secondary

Originally posted by cciowa:

when they get toasted in pre season check back with me. of course. i will be,.., its only pre season. guess we just can not get past it being unlawful to dare be critical of the new regime . you are hoping the new coaches will make a difference. hoping all these unknowns in the secondary will pan out. hoping to find gems in undrafted free agents. a whole lotta hoping. i am stunned to think there is no need to sign a vet safety and cornerback. to many people here think we will go back in time to 81 and that rookie secondary

There's a difference in being critical and just straight up hating man. Like I said if you don't think they've improved player wise and coaching wise from last yr then I don't know what to tell ya.

We have a ton of young DBs, it's time to see if they can play in a real scheme OR if we have to improve the position next yr...I'd rather have an answer about our players, then throw out an old vet with no future on this team.

Robinson looks legit and is reportedly up to 190lbs. His coverage skills are on pt...not many freshman DBs start at LSU and he did for good reason.

Ward can play FS/CB/slot and finally gets to play the position that made him a Jim Thorpe finalist in college...now we have two battles out there between DJ/Reaser/Witherspoon for that other outside spot & slot duties between Redmond/Williams.

It's gonna be an interesting battle in training camp... Davis is nothing more than a camp body, much like every single team does...not just SF.

Originally posted by pasodoc9er:

In the thread on "which position do you think is the most problematic"...or something close to that, i put down DBs, CBs in particular. My feeling about our DBs for the last 3-4 yrs has been that they are like jello in your hand....it just oozes thru your fingers and you can't quite get a grip on it.(them)....and i still feel that way. Agree that Spoon is most likely a "redshirt" this yr, but that is kinda like the feeling i have for all our DBs. It seemed we drafted 1 or 2 every yr for awhile under baalke at high picks, but nobody just ever stuck out like a Kim chancellor or his buddy on SEA. Not sure exactly why that is but with Lynch here now, i would hope that deficiency gets fixed. I think of our DBs as an appendage that just doesn't work very well, and if it has a great front 7 , then functions okay. IF the front 7 is garbage, then the DBs don't help us at all. Put another way, our DBs are NOT going to carry this team.(IMO, anyway).

They why of this i don't understand, but the feeling we just have jello in our hands with our DBs is one i can't seem to shake. I wish i could get more enthusiastic with this group, but so far it just hasn't hit me. What am i missing here? Somebody please cheer me up.

Nah. I am not going to cheer you up. It's the time of year where we have a lot of hope, but I don't see any proof yet. It's one thing to be hopeful,but I temper that with a good dose of reality. Shanahan's offense takes two years minimum to start clicking. We are installing an entirely new defense with a lot of new players, rookies and question marks. We could catch lightning in a bottle but the odds are against it.

Originally posted by NYniner85:

Originally posted by cciowa:

Originally posted by NYniner85:
Will Davis thought we were done with torn ACLs

Sounds like a camp body to me

LOL if anyone thinks we can make a respectable secondary out of a bunch of camp bodies. jesus. is will davis the best we can do? no offense to those who say a improved pass rush will help our secondary. that has yet to be proven as well. i do not see how we have. aside from two draft picks and one is still rehabbing. fixed the worst defense in the nfl

Like I said camp body...who outside of Davis is a "camp body"? We had the 14th overall pass D last yr not dead last. We delt with a s**t ton of injuries last yr and you're straight up hating if you don't think we improved the defense with the guys we drafted/brought in along with the coaching changes.

True but you can attribute a lot of that to teams being able to run at will on our defense. Half of the games there wasn't a need to even throw a pass in the 2nd half. Teams didn't have trouble making plays in the passing game when they wanted too.

Originally posted by lamontb:

Originally posted by NYniner85:

Originally posted by cciowa:

Originally posted by NYniner85:

Will Davis thought we were done with torn ACLs

Sounds like a camp body to me

LOL if anyone thinks we can make a respectable secondary out of a bunch of camp bodies. jesus. is will davis the best we can do? no offense to those who say a improved pass rush will help our secondary. that has yet to be proven as well. i do not see how we have. aside from two draft picks and one is still rehabbing. fixed the worst defense in the nfl

Like I said camp body...who outside of Davis is a "camp body"? We had the 14th overall pass D last yr not dead last. We delt with a s**t ton of injuries last yr and you're straight up hating if you don't think we improved the defense with the guys we drafted/brought in along with the coaching changes.

True but you can attribute a lot of that to teams being able to run at will on our defense. Half of the games there wasn't a need to even throw a pass in the 2nd half. Teams didn't have trouble making plays in the passing game when they wanted too.

When a team is already up at the half and their running game is clicking on all cylinders, they don't need to pass as much. And lets face it, we were flat awful at stopping the run, so yeah that probably had something to do with our pass defense rating.

Originally posted by lamontb:

True but you can attribute a lot of that to teams being able to run at will on our defense. Half of the games there wasn't a need to even throw a pass in the 2nd half. Teams didn't have trouble making plays in the passing game when they wanted too.

There's always a BUT regarding any stat lol...I knew someone was gonna try an s**t on that stat as soon as I posted it.

Then I could come back and say lack of a pass rush played a part in our secondary issues, no? Our run D was by far worse then our pass D.

I'll add last yrs scheme was a read and react type D this yr it's gonna be a attack D...that alone should help with getting pressure on the QB thus helping the secondary.

im very high on johnson. I think him and robinson would be a solid outside tandem, but i know im in the minority.

Originally posted by pdizo916:
im very high on johnson. I think him and robinson would be a solid outside tandem, but i know im in the minority.

Johnson has always been decent whenever he got a chance to play. But for some reason he could never solidify a role with the previous coaching staffs. He's definitely got the size and athleticism we want for this scheme.

Probably the best game he's played was that 2015 game against ATL. Injuries in the secondary earned him a start matched up against Julio Jones, and Johnson more than held his own.

Originally posted by pdizo916:

im very high on johnson. I think him and robinson would be a solid outside tandem, but i know im in the minority.

I'd love Johnson to lock down the other outside spot

Originally posted by NYniner85:

Originally posted by lamontb:

True but you can attribute a lot of that to teams being able to run at will on our defense. Half of the games there wasn't a need to even throw a pass in the 2nd half. Teams didn't have trouble making plays in the passing game when they wanted too.

There's always a BUT regarding any stat lol...I knew someone was gonna try an s**t on that stat as soon as I posted it.

Then I could come back and say lack of a pass rush played a part in our secondary issues, no? Our run D was by far worse then our pass D.

I'll add last yrs scheme was a read and react type D this yr it's gonna be a attack D...that alone should help with getting pressure on the QB thus helping the secondary.

The lack of pass rush almost certainly led to troubles in the secondary. You have to have everything working to have a decent defense. But Lamont still has a pint about being able to run all over us...but I agree an attacking defense,better coaching, a little more experience and new personnel should all help make this a better overall
defense this year. But I don't think we see it come together as fast as we might like.

Originally posted by NYniner85:

Originally posted by pdizo916:

im very high on johnson. I think him and robinson would be a solid outside tandem, but i know im in the minority.

I'd love Johnson to lock down the other outside spot

This. I've been banging my fist on the table for Johnson all offseason. For some reason the guy doesn't show up well in practices but there is enough game film evidence that this guy is a gamer. Do I think he's got pro bowl potential...no. However, I think he's the best chance of what we have in our secondary for that other starting spot right now.

Originally posted by mojave45:

The lack of pass rush almost certainly led to troubles in the secondary. You have to have everything working to have a decent defense. But Lamont still has a pint about being able to run all over us...but I agree an attacking defense,better coaching, a little more experience and new personnel should all help make this a better overall
defense this year. But I don't think we see it come together as fast as we might like.

No I agree teams didn't have to throw a ton to be successful on us last yr, but you can find an excuse to poo poo on just about every stat in football...that's my pt on that. End of the day we did have the 14th overall pass D.

Originally posted by NYniner85:

Originally posted by lamontb:
True but you can attribute a lot of that to teams being able to run at will on our defense. Half of the games there wasn't a need to even throw a pass in the 2nd half. Teams didn't have trouble making plays in the passing game when they wanted too.

There's always a BUT regarding any stat lol...I knew someone was gonna try an s**t on that stat as soon as I posted it.

Then I could come back and say lack of a pass rush played a part in our secondary issues, no? Our run D was by far worse then our pass D.

I'll add last yrs scheme was a read and react type D this yr it's gonna be a attack D...that alone should help with getting pressure on the QB thus helping the secondary.

Not s**tting on a stat it's just reality. True a better pass rush would've have helped some. That ranking to me is more of a reflection on our poor run defense than the talent we have in our secondary.

Originally posted by NYniner85:

Originally posted by mojave45:
The lack of pass rush almost certainly led to troubles in the secondary. You have to have everything working to have a decent defense. But Lamont still has a pint about being able to run all over us...but I agree an attacking defense,better coaching, a little more experience and new personnel should all help make this a better overall
defense this year. But I don't think we see it come together as fast as we might like.

No I agree teams didn't have to throw a ton to be successful on us last yr, but you can find an excuse to poo poo on just about every stat in football...that's my pt on that. End of the day we did have the 14th overall pass D.

Using total yards given up to rank is misleading. They had the 5th worst QB rating given up, which means QB were very efficient against them, and the yards given up per pass pass attempt was tied for 4th worst in the league (7.7 ypa).

The 2016 49ers faced the second least pass attempts in the league. So they faced the second least pass attempts and yet were middle of the pack in yards given up. Seems to me opposing QBs were very efficient against this 14th ranked pass defense.

Originally posted by thl408:
Using total yards given up to rank is misleading. They had the 5th worst QB rating given up, which means QB were very efficient against them, and the yards given up per pass pass attempt was tied for 4th worst in the league (7.7 ypa).

The 2016 49ers faced the second least pass attempts in the league. So they faced the second least pass attempts and yet were middle of the pack in yards given up. Seems to me opposing QBs were very efficient against this 14th ranked pass defense.

Good points. Last years pass defense was burnt toast on a per-play basis. There's a number of factors that go into that beyond the personnel in the secondary, but they were not good or even average. The 14th ranking is probably more a product of boasting one of the worst run defenses in NFL history, which opposing teams were happy to focus on exploiting.

Originally posted by SofaKing:

Originally posted by thl408:
Using total yards given up to rank is misleading. They had the 5th worst QB rating given up, which means QB were very efficient against them, and the yards given up per pass pass attempt was tied for 4th worst in the league (7.7 ypa).

The 2016 49ers faced the second least pass attempts in the league. So they faced the second least pass attempts and yet were middle of the pack in yards given up. Seems to me opposing QBs were very efficient against this 14th ranked pass defense.

Good points. Last years pass defense was burnt toast on a per-play basis. There's a number of factors that go into that beyond the personnel in the secondary, but they were not good or even average. The 14th ranking is probably more a product of boasting one of the worst run defenses in NFL history, which opposing teams were happy to focus on exploiting.

It really is hard to isolate one stat because there's so much connection between one aspect of the defense to the other. Then how much does Chip's pathetic time of possession affect the defense? I think efficiency stats tell so much more than rankings based on raw totals.