The Secondary

Originally posted by HERN:
1. Cully
2. Brock
3. Ward
4. Cox
5. Johnson
6. Cook
I would assume that we will be going in with all 6 DB activated.

There's something about Cully that makes me think that he should be benched.

I would rather have Johnson take some snaps since that's his eventual replacement.

Johnson is good, but one-on-one with Marshall next week?

I know it was small sample size but the secondary looked a whole lot better than last year. They looked quick ,aggressive ,and active. Bethea is a better hitter than I thought, we got safeties who could conceivably improve every week, a plethora of different kinds of corners with different sizes and attributes. Just gota get that pass rush dialed in. Release the Tank.

Romo coming off the back injury and mistake prone... Cutler hmmmmm. I don't think these first two games are real tests. I do give them a lot of credit though.

During the off season, I believed the secondary would be much improved and no longer the Achilles heel of the defense. However, I'd like to see a couple more games. If they suck a little next week, they'll deserve a pass, they are quite dinged up from Sunday.

I am concerned about Brock's toe sprain. Those can take a long time to heal and he'll lose his explosive directional change ability in the mean time.

Originally posted by HERN:

1. Cully
2. Brock
3. Ward
4. Cox
5. Johnson
6. Cook
I would assume that we will be going in with all 6 DB activated.

There's something about Cully that makes me think that he should be benched.

I would rather have Johnson take some snaps since that's his eventual replacement.

Was it Cully's fumble recovery for the TD?

Originally posted by LVJay:
Romo coming off the back injury and mistake prone... Cutler hmmmmm. I don't think these first two games are real tests. I do give them a lot of credit though.

During the off season, I believed the secondary would be much improved and no longer the Achilles heel of the defense. However, I'd like to see a couple more games. If they suck a little next week, they'll deserve a pass, they are quite dinged up from Sunday.

Well us fans shouldn't think the 9ers can just look at Chicago as a 'walk in the park', Alshon Jeffery and Brandon Marshall are no joke. Also Matt Forte will be another one to keep an eye on, I don't think he gets enough credit that he deserves in the NFL, a very underrated running back IMO. If the defense can't pressure Cutler, it's gonna be a long day.

With all that bullsh** I just said, I expect Ahmad Brooks to get at least two sacks in this game. And somebody will get a pick. so I'm gonna have to say Eric Reid once again.

Originally posted by Kolohe:

Well us fans shouldn't think the 9ers can just look at Chicago as a 'walk in the park', Alshon Jeffery and Brandon Marshall are no joke. Also Matt Forte will be another one to keep an eye on, I don't think he gets enough credit that he deserves in the NFL, a very underrated running back IMO. If the defense can't pressure Cutler, it's gonna be a long day.

With all that bullsh** I just said, I expect Ahmad Brooks to get at least two sacks in this game. And somebody will get a pick. so I'm gonna have to say Eric Reid once again.

Yea Forte has 88 receiving yards off 7 reception against the bills. The coaches are really going to have make a choice between dropping a safety down on Bennett or covering him with Willis in which case you have Whilhoite covering Forte the leak outs. I think that's most likely what they'll do. Willis will probably play underneath Bennett and pass him off to the safety so he will also be able to cover the flat. Regardless we're going to need a better pass rush from Lemons and Brooks or we might as well let Tank play his college position at DE and rotate in Lynch. You simply can't give Jeffry and Marshall all that time to stretch out the secondary and high point the ball for a big gain.

I'm still not convinced of our secondary. We definitely benefited from playing against Romo. And i am concerned about Brock's toe, and Culliver's and Ward's concussions (or symptons). Hopefully at least 2 of those guys can play and be contributors. I felt pretty good about Cook in the preseason but he wasn't even active on Sunday, so who knows with him. We need to keep pressure on the QB with our LBs and DEs to take the onus off our CBs.

It will all depend on the pass rush. If we can't put pressure, our DB'S are screwed. If we get pressure, they'll survive.

Originally posted by tondiman:
It will all depend on the pass rush. If we can't put pressure, our DB'S are screwed. If we get pressure, they'll survive.

Yup. We're going to give up some extra yards without a pass rush. Fangio wants to be able to generate pressure with 4 rushers, and that will be much more difficult without Aldon for 9 games. He rarely blitzes, and I think he wants to keep it that way no matter what. It's the essence of his scheme.

Everybody has to step up, especially young guys like Lemonier and Lynch. Lemonier was completely ineffective against Dallas. He had zero QB pressures despite getting more pass rush snaps than any other LB. He has to play better.

Originally posted by SofaKing:

Yup. We're going to give up some extra yards without a pass rush. Fangio wants to be able to generate pressure with 4 rushers, and that will be much more difficult without Aldon for 9 games. He rarely blitzes, and I think he wants to keep it that way no matter what. It's the essence of his scheme.

Everybody has to step up, especially young guys like Lemonier and Lynch. Lemonier was completely ineffective against Dallas. He had zero QB pressures despite getting more pass rush snaps than any other LB. He has to play better.

Lemonier has to be better and I still think our defense is going to fare much better than CHI. Our offense is going to maul their defense both running and passing

Originally posted by Kolohe:

Originally posted by LVJay:

Romo coming off the back injury and mistake prone... Cutler hmmmmm. I don't think these first two games are real tests. I do give them a lot of credit though.

During the off season, I believed the secondary would be much improved and no longer the Achilles heel of the defense. However, I'd like to see a couple more games. If they suck a little next week, they'll deserve a pass, they are quite dinged up from Sunday.

Well us fans shouldn't think the 9ers can just look at Chicago as a 'walk in the park', Alshon Jeffery and Brandon Marshall are no joke. Also Matt Forte will be another one to keep an eye on, I don't think he gets enough credit that he deserves in the NFL, a very underrated running back IMO. If the defense can't pressure Cutler, it's gonna be a long day.

With all that bullsh** I just said, I expect Ahmad Brooks to get at least two sacks in this game. And somebody will get a pick. so I'm gonna have to say Eric Reid once again.

I can see our secondary grabbing at least one INT next game also, dont be surprised if hard hitter Bathea gets that INT.

If one of of our CB's can't go b/c of the toe and/or concussion, I wonder if we'll not only activate Chris Cook but start him b/c of his experience with the Bear receivers.

PS: Like I said once we let Brown, Rogers and Whitner go, we're going to give up a few more yards (at first) BUT we're also going to create a ton more TO's. We got a small glimpse of that on Sunday. The depth in the secondary is amazing and all these little injuries just means we're going to be even stronger by the end of the year and esp. once we get Dorsey, Aldon and Bowman back!

Originally posted by T-9ers:
I know it was small sample size but the secondary looked a whole lot better than last year. They looked quick ,aggressive ,and active. Bethea is a better hitter than I thought, we got safeties who could conceivably improve every week, a plethora of different kinds of corners with different sizes and attributes. Just gota get that pass rush dialed in. Release the Tank.

Totally. I'd like to see more sets with Justin pinched inside with Carradine at RDE with BOTH Lynch (SAM) and Brooks (WILL) in at the same time. I'd also like to see Fangio actually shake things up a bit and play some jamming press with his CB's rather than playing 100% of his more exotic off coverage schemes (we have the talent to do both now...so use it!).

Originally posted by 60sFan:
I am concerned about Brock's toe sprain. Those can take a long time to heal and he'll lose his explosive directional change ability in the mean time.

I would agree but it was a good sign that Brock came back in late in the game when Ward got hurt. Also, he was on the sidelines running pretty quickly after he exited, I bet if the game were closer & or Cox/Johnson weren't playing so well, he would have been put back into the game.