Yakuza Rich
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I wasn’t going to do this, but it’s the halfway point and one particular comment from Jerry really irked me, especially after last night. And most of you here know that I, more often than not, defend Jerry. But the comment of ‘we can’t buy a turnover’ to me was a very dumb one and shows how I highly doubt we will ever even go to a Super Bowl with Romo being perfectly healthy because Jerry doesn’t get it.
Certainly, I think we can be a very good team that makes the playoffs next season with a healthy Romo, Dez and company. But going to a Super Bowl is another issue. And it starts with the defense.
I’m not a big college football guy, but living in Atlanta for 8 years (I now live in Florida), I quickly started to hate UGA football. And one of the things my friends and I laugh about is that we have all conceded long ago that Mark Richt will never win a National Championship at Georgia. He’s good enough to consistently produce a winning team and even get double digit wins in a season. But when it really matters and he’s against a good coach, he loses even with superior talent.
This is not so much of an indictment against Garrett as it is an understanding of Garrett’s weaknesses. And the big similarity I see between Richt and Garrett is that they cannot field a quality defense. And in Garrett’s case I think the organization and their defensive philosophy isn’t helping matters any.
To me, the defense and offense both have to cover up for each other. When the offense struggles, the defense has to pick up their game and vice versa. And I think in today’s NFL which is so heavily geared towards the offense, I am not really sure you can have a dominating, shut everybody down type of defense anymore. Hell, the Seahawks are no longer that dominating defense and their personnel is very much the same. With the advent of pick plays and penalties thrown so easily on hits (which I’m in favor of) and it easy to get pass interference or illegal contact, it just heavily favors the offense.
To me, the ‘good’ defenses these days do a pretty good job at holding the other teams. But what they do best now is they create turnovers, particularly interceptions. I think the statistics I posted a while ago on elite pass defenses, particularly since 2011, have pointed to that very clearly. If you want an elite pass defense these days, you have to make interceptions. You can’t just have a low completion percentage because these days the passes are so easy to complete.
What aggravated me about Jerry’s statement is that it has nothing to do with ‘buying’ a turnover. It’s about the defenders are not in position to make a turnover. And we saw a big part of the problem on the final play of the game….you’re going to give up passes in today’s game. But, instead of having a safety that can run to the ball carrier and tackle him, JJ Wilcox gets stiffarmed and the receiver scores a TD rather easily.
It’s a very old school approach to football, but it probably applies more than ever in today’s game. The safeties are the last line of defense in football. And we don’t have the safeties that can make up for a mistake by the corner, that can make plays on the ball and that can make the corners’ jobs easier. Seriously, we may have the worst combination of top-3 safeties on a team with Church, Wilcox and Heath. They are all just as guilty out there throughout a game. And when they play ‘well’, they still are not making plays on the ball or covering up for receiver mistakes.
The rough outlook on all of this is that I doubt that we will ever get some real quality safeties. Marinelli has never shown the desire to find one and Jerry is still stuck thinking that this 1995 where you can go cheap on safeties and put your money into the cornerback position (which still needs help). And to top things off, we may need to overhaul our linebacker corp as Lee is not suited to play NFL football. He gets injured way too often. And McClain looks terribly out of shape and I have to question his motivation and lack of speed anyway.
And there you have it. We can talk about Romo, Dez, Witten, how great the D-Line will improve, re-signing Hardy, how great Lee could be if he could stay on the field, Byron Jones, and whatever else you can think of. But, it’s going to be more of Mark Richt-ish type seasons until we find some safeties that can actually play this game.
YR
Certainly, I think we can be a very good team that makes the playoffs next season with a healthy Romo, Dez and company. But going to a Super Bowl is another issue. And it starts with the defense.
I’m not a big college football guy, but living in Atlanta for 8 years (I now live in Florida), I quickly started to hate UGA football. And one of the things my friends and I laugh about is that we have all conceded long ago that Mark Richt will never win a National Championship at Georgia. He’s good enough to consistently produce a winning team and even get double digit wins in a season. But when it really matters and he’s against a good coach, he loses even with superior talent.
This is not so much of an indictment against Garrett as it is an understanding of Garrett’s weaknesses. And the big similarity I see between Richt and Garrett is that they cannot field a quality defense. And in Garrett’s case I think the organization and their defensive philosophy isn’t helping matters any.
To me, the defense and offense both have to cover up for each other. When the offense struggles, the defense has to pick up their game and vice versa. And I think in today’s NFL which is so heavily geared towards the offense, I am not really sure you can have a dominating, shut everybody down type of defense anymore. Hell, the Seahawks are no longer that dominating defense and their personnel is very much the same. With the advent of pick plays and penalties thrown so easily on hits (which I’m in favor of) and it easy to get pass interference or illegal contact, it just heavily favors the offense.
To me, the ‘good’ defenses these days do a pretty good job at holding the other teams. But what they do best now is they create turnovers, particularly interceptions. I think the statistics I posted a while ago on elite pass defenses, particularly since 2011, have pointed to that very clearly. If you want an elite pass defense these days, you have to make interceptions. You can’t just have a low completion percentage because these days the passes are so easy to complete.
What aggravated me about Jerry’s statement is that it has nothing to do with ‘buying’ a turnover. It’s about the defenders are not in position to make a turnover. And we saw a big part of the problem on the final play of the game….you’re going to give up passes in today’s game. But, instead of having a safety that can run to the ball carrier and tackle him, JJ Wilcox gets stiffarmed and the receiver scores a TD rather easily.
It’s a very old school approach to football, but it probably applies more than ever in today’s game. The safeties are the last line of defense in football. And we don’t have the safeties that can make up for a mistake by the corner, that can make plays on the ball and that can make the corners’ jobs easier. Seriously, we may have the worst combination of top-3 safeties on a team with Church, Wilcox and Heath. They are all just as guilty out there throughout a game. And when they play ‘well’, they still are not making plays on the ball or covering up for receiver mistakes.
The rough outlook on all of this is that I doubt that we will ever get some real quality safeties. Marinelli has never shown the desire to find one and Jerry is still stuck thinking that this 1995 where you can go cheap on safeties and put your money into the cornerback position (which still needs help). And to top things off, we may need to overhaul our linebacker corp as Lee is not suited to play NFL football. He gets injured way too often. And McClain looks terribly out of shape and I have to question his motivation and lack of speed anyway.
And there you have it. We can talk about Romo, Dez, Witten, how great the D-Line will improve, re-signing Hardy, how great Lee could be if he could stay on the field, Byron Jones, and whatever else you can think of. But, it’s going to be more of Mark Richt-ish type seasons until we find some safeties that can actually play this game.
YR
