Yup. Bill lost that battle. He thought he could let everyone walk, and found out that Flowers was much more important than he realized. Same thing happened w/ Seymour. Bill can coach 'em up better than anyone, but he needed more talent there than he realized. Wonder if he finally figured out that you must have DL disruption, even w/ his superior schemes?
His total D was still 1st in the NFL, however.
He has a cap formula and it doesn't matter how good the player is unless he's a CB. He places a value on that position because of how he uses them to cover in the initial 2-3 seconds. He also uses them to get his QB to quicken his release.
His D this past season was #2 in pass yards, #1 in total, #1 in picks, #7 in sacks, #1 in TD's and completion %. I am going to attribute that to his secondary, not his DL. He did let Flowers walk but he would have let any DE walk that was going to break his cap formula.
BTW, know where his D ranked in sacks with Flowers in 2018? 30th.
I know, this goes against the grain of conventional thinking because I always believed the better the DL, the better that could make the secondary but he started reversing that. He let his best pass rusher walk and increased everything including his pass completion %.
Now, the caveat is this is probably the best D mind the game has ever seen and he's proven he knows how to deploy his weapons better than anyone else. I am not saying this trend would work for every team but I have studied this cat closely because he intrigues me with his moves. And he definitely has been in a secondary shift for quite some time. All the others are more get to the QB so he can't get the ball to the weapons and he's more take the weapons away and get to the QB.