The Defense, good and bad, thread

[burmafrd]

The Good

Claiborne, Patmon and White have played well. Claiborne is looking something like the CB that we drafted and I think Patmon is more skilled than Scandrick in the slot. Byron Jones has looked solid as a rookie. There are some instances where his inexperience shows up.

Lawrence finally played well tonight. He's been atrocious versus the Giants and Falcons and played well against the Eagles...but everybody played well against the Eagles.

Damien Wilson looked good and made me wonder why he hasn't seen more playing time. Probably struggling with where to be in practice, but if he plays well in the game then maybe he's a poor practice player.

I hate to say it, but Nick Hayden has been solid this year. Crawford played well and Mincey played well.

Irving looked real promising. I'm a bit skeptical of him because he's very tall for a 4-3 DT, but so was Hatcher.

I think Wilcox is pretty darn solid out there.


The Bad

Gachkar got lost too many times. Since the refs don't call illegal pick plays more often than I may see Haley's Comet, he got injured on an illegal pick play and should have feigned an injury timeout on the field. Instead, he rushed to get off the field and that caused confusion with who would be substituting and Payton took advantage of it. Kind of symbolized the night. Somebody gets injured and there's confusion for the new player as for what they should do.

I don't understand Marinelli's play calling when the Saints stocked up on the strongside and continually ran that way. That was awful by Marinelli.

As I said after his injury in 2013, we really need to move on from the Sean Lee era. He's great when he's healthy, but he gets injured way too often and he's relied upon too much. I like the idea of Ro. McClain, Lee and Hitchens at LB because Hitchens can move to the WILL if when Lee gets hurt again. But, we couldn't even get 4 games from Lee to stay healthy before McClain came back. And McClain wasn't exactly injury free last season and I'm not sure what we do next year at LB other than hope Wilson comes along nicely and we draft another LB that can contribute right away. I still think one of the best things that happened to this defense last season was Lee getting injured for the season right away. It may sound harsh, but the reality is that we didn't have to rely on him.

The strongside looks to be a massive issue. That's where Lawrence, Wilber/Gachkar, Carr and Church all play. The Falcons gouged the strongside and so did the Saints. Lawrence played well this week, but it appears that opponents will use his aggressiveness against him. Which is fine, but you need a linebacker AND corner to step up on the process and Carr is dreadful against the run.

The issue with Church is that he's not the smartest safety out there and doesn't have the speed to makeup for it. I think it's a major issue for this organization going forward...we need to value the safety position more in this game than we value the corner position. That's what the league has changed into. If we have a great zone corner, I'm all for paying extra money to keep them (i.e. Claiborne if he continues at this rate). But, this is a game where good defenses better have very good safeties. I think Wilcox is fine. But, it's a serious hole with Church unless the pass rush is working and the opposing offense is playing at a slow pace. And I don't know if Marinelli and the organization would be into finding a top notch safety in the draft.






YR

not calling a timeout was on Red Ball - a very clear game day mistake from someone who Is just not a good game day coach. Marinelli I have noticed is reluctant to make changes during games and that came back to haunt us. Now once again that is partially on Red Ball because he needs to assert his authority and tell him we need to make some changes. I love Lee but its time to move on. Some players are just snake bit and he is one and you just have to acknowledge what is. Claiborne is playing well- still not up to the staffs claim he was almost as good a prospect as Deion and still not worth what we gave to pick him or his draft position but just maybe worth keeping if he does not want too much money. Carr... ugh. Time to move on there as well. Absolutely we need to upgrade Safety but I guess Marinelli agrees with Jerruh that we do not need to put any real resources there. Just like thinking Hayden is enough for that position.

 

[Nexx]

this team is soft right now. our best defensive player is physically soft health wise, our head coach's game planning is soft, maranellis's game planning is soft, our QB is mentally soft, our running backs are soft. things we can do to change this.

obviously getting Ro and RoMac back is gonna make this defense less soft, those are grown men. the defense to me plays best in man coverage, lets man up bump and press cause cause our zone scheme sucks balls. not sure what you can do about sean lee other than pray for the best. lets try a different approach on first down bit more, play action go intermediate or deep or even a screen, wheel route, quick slant, quick out, just something different please. we cant have teams just constantly run blitzing and having an eight man front on first down and bash our heads into it. play christine michael please. im tired of randle and his boneheadedness.

 

[CowboyGil]

I think Tyrone Crawford, DLaw and Irving played good. Among the linebackers, Hitchens and Wilson. And in the secondary Mo was the only one that played good.
The bad: Church, Carr and Wilcox. And the biggest bad which makes me more sad than angry: Sean Lee's durability. It's a darn shame that such an intelligent, physical player that loves the game as much as he does cannot stay on the field the full 60.

 

[31smackdown]

The good - Hardy, McClain return this week, Gregory not far behind. The bye week is coming just in time and will help them get their legs back.. this defense just looks tired and a step slow on the DL.
The bad - Church and backup LB's are not filling their gaps against the run and we can't defend the 5 yard pass. Teams don't even try to go downfield very often.
The ugly - Tom Brady and Patriots heavy use of up tempo and mismatch alignments against this inexperienced defense. If you think Brees made them look bad, the Patriots are the masters of situational minipulation and taking advantage of defenses that can't get lined up or adjust to personnel. It's that last play in overtime and the strong side overload, over and over and over again.

 

[CowboysFaninHouston]

second game in a row that the defense has collapsed in the 2nd half, specially in the 4th quarter. is it that we are undermanned and run out of gas? in the 4th quarter Atlanta and NO just went through the defense like hot knife through butter.

the areas of concern and probably target for draft, is LBs and Safeties. I love Sean Lee's smarts and passion, but he is just injury prone (of all kinds, albeit non-related he seems to get injured all the time). I like Hitchens, but he is more of a complimentary LB. Like to see Byron Jones move to safety spot and see what he can do. Wilcox has been underwhelming. Church just doesn't have range.

I like Crawford and glad we signed him, but I think we also need a star in the middle.

 

[Chuck 54]

I cannot be happy with any defensive scheme, especially in OT, where you have a rookie LB covering CJ Spiller on the outside.....Lee couldn't run with Spiller on the outside!

 

[BourbonBalz]

Wish our defense would hit the jug machine with all these dropped INT's.

Why, we always get them voided with a ******* penalty? We had a int. last night that was nullified by a penalty, and another one that was dropped but would also have been nullified.

 

[CowboysFaninHouston]

What did you see as the good in the game with the Defense and what was the bad.

in the first half, we were seeing the plays, swarming and DL was providing some pressure and penetration. in the second half, specially by 4th quarter, they looked gassed. tired. missed tackles. no penetration, no pressure






\

 

[dallasdave]

They don't seem to be capable at intercepting the ball at all.

Just bad defense !!!

 

[CowboysFaninHouston]

What did you see as the good in the game with the Defense and what was the bad.

they seem to start strong and lose discipline over the course of the game and we are down right awful in the 4th quarter. in the 4th, no pressure, missed assignments, bad angles and bad tackling. three games now.

 

[50cent]

Good: B. Jones
Bad: Hayden starting