Originally posted by Marvin49:
Originally posted by Decima_Mas:
Originally posted by JamesGatz83:
Strong and free safety are basically interchangeable in our defense and virtually every modern NFL defense.
What you say is correct but you missed the point. The weak ring in our sedondary is Whitner not Goldson. Goldson together with a pure free satety would form a fantastic combo while whitner together with a pure free saferty would always be the weak ring.
I'd actually rather they resolved this issue now by possibly releasing or trading Whitner, signing Goldson, drafting a young safety, and then taking a stab at an Ed Reed or Charles Woodson to play FS for a year or 2 till the young safety is ready.
Bottom line, SOMETHING needs the change. A number of peeps have said that this issue was the pass rush and that exposed the Secondary. That's true, but to me it's just because a very good pass rush was covering up deficiencies in the secondary. Once Justin and Aldon were hurt and teams started double and triple teaming Aldon, the Niners weren't getting very much rush. The Niners aren't going to replace any of those 4 LBs and they aren't going to replace Justin or Ray McDonald.....so they need to be able to hold up at least a bit better in the secondary.
I'd love to see them let Rogers go and go after Revis, but that's a bit of a pipedream. Bottom line, they need better coverage out of their secondary...just enough to make the QB hold the ball for another second to let the rush get there. Its clear teams have learned where to attack and his number is 31.
It became glaringly obvious come playoff time that teams had figured out how to deal with the 49ers defense, so yeah I agree with you. One caveat, the defensive staff did show the ability to adjust at half time and plug the leaking dam. The problem is the Super Bowl was the dam was just too broken after that kick return.
Thoughts I had:
- What would the chances of Culliver moving back to Safety to share the middle with Goldson be? Whitner is a great run stopper, but really, I'd rather my defensive front stopped the RB prior to Whitner even being there in the first place.
- Should anything be done about Rogers? I know many are hard on the guy, but it's not like he's playing poorly. Rather he's just playing below his contract payout.
- Would like to have Delanie Walker back, but his situation might truly be a case of a good player just having to move on because of circumstance. Vernon Davis is the man here, Walker is good enough to be the man virtually anywhere else, so I feel like Delanie is going to want (and deserve) to be paid as a #1 guy. If he does go elsewhere, I'll totally understand.
- What to do at WR? Is Kyle Williams really the long-term answer in the slot? How will Manningham fit in? The problem we have is that the 49ers have a #1 and two #3's in the lineup. I'd like to draft a burner, but in reality we are going to need someone who matches up better physically at the line of scrimmage to be able to deal with the kind of jams the Seahawks will be playing (win the division first).
- The 49ers need to find an answer for why missing Justin Smith made such a devastating impact on our defense. I am not knowledgeable enough to really know the answer. You'd think with the #1 LB's in football someone could pick up the slack....but......................