Originally posted by OnTheClock:
I remember getting berated for defending him, or really not so much defending, but just trying to be fair to him early on. I didn't absolve him of mistakes, but thought he caught way more flack than was deserved. Dude is a good DC. He's proven this year that it wasn't just all the talent -- he clearly has a lot to do with our D's success.
#6 Defense overall, #4 against the pass despite no Dee or Bosa and no Sherman basically all year.
I think he's grown into a really good DC each year. Last year it was harder to tease out talent from his scheme adjustments where he had the M.O. of going conservative at the ends of halfs and games and it would cost us, struggled with in-game adjustments (Witner still complains of this), leaves players out to dry, has made some odd personnel choices, seems locked in on his big personnel even against mobile QB's, it was questioned whether it was even his idea to bring in Kocurek and Woods which instantly improved the defense immensely, 21 points given up in 5 minutes of the Superbowl, etc.
I think ALL of the criticisms were very fair
at the time because like you said, he was developing as he went.
But this year, he's had some key personnel losses, his M.O. isn't as prevalent and he's stayed with morphing away from strictly C3 to a lot more interchangeable 2 S's and switched boundary and field side coverages.
In short, we're seeing more growth and development. Arrow up.
And he deserves whatever good comes to him because of his high character, ability to adapt to coaching and personnel changes and pressure from Kyle and extremely hard work ethic.
[ Edited by NCommand on Dec 3, 2020 at 8:49 AM ]
