..and especially in the defense in general in their playing so much of the nickle defense against the Eagles..
..is that our personnel when healthy and manned..
..is a much better defense with 4 down linemen as opposed to trying to put too much pressure on the OLBers to play BOTH pass rushing and run defense.
By having Ware as a down lineman at this point..it forces the offense to committ to double-teaming him and that means we can then apply additional pressure at the single matchups to get the results...since we know where 2-3 of their players are going to be..
..stopping Ware.
I think too much has been expected of Ware and he's over his head to be trying to learn an OLBer spot in a difficult to learn defense in his 1st year.
Spears has it much easier as he only has to generally matchup with interior linemen.
Ware has to do that PLUS TE's and RB's coming out of the backfield, etc.
That's a TALL order.
So I'll bet we see more of him in a 4-3 and see him rotated in and out with Spears and others to give him a break since he is so outweighed on the DL play-in-play out.
But I think they will let him concentrate on pass-rushing and run containment for now and get proficient at that and used to the pace and stamina required to do that before they keep asking him to keep switching in and out of 3-4/4-3 positions.
That way, they have something they can count on with him..and something they force the offense to adjust for when he's in there.
Once he settles in to playing well there, they'll probably start moving him around and help free him up to be more effective..whether it's moving him to the opposite DE position or other OLBer.
As good as Ware has been..what is very curious to me is the lack of sacks by Greg Ellis and others given the presence of Ware and Spears and Ferguson on the DL.
Glover also.
I really thought we'd see Ellis and Glover step up and be more effective in the pass rush at this point now that they have help with these other guys.
But I think both of them have been VERY SLOW out of the chute this season with their playmaking other than stopping some running. Their transition to pressuring the passer is not good at all.
And I still see us having to blitz an awful lot to get pressure on the QB. Even when we are in the 4-3 nickle alignment.
This doesn't bode well as the season goes on, because other offensive coordinators are going to finally get a read on our blizing and make us pay the price.
They already have to some extent. See Charger, Skins and Raiders game footage.
So while I like the Iggles game defensively, there seems to be a heck of a lot of work still required of the DL/Lbers to get better and I'm not sure exactly what the problems are with the 3-4.
Other than lack of confidence, lack of personnel to run it completely and lack of an experienced DC to run it for us.
I suppose that's about it right there.
Later.
parcellswaterboy
