Why Does This Defense Suck?

[superpunk]

I dont need to "sell" anything anymore in regards to why we continually come up looking mediocre on defense

its Parcells and Zimmer, or Zimmer and Parcells...pretty much end of story there...niether has a clue what they are doing.

David

I guess it will always be easier to just lay the blanket of blame on "coaching", rather than the overrated players who can't execute the gameplan. Lord knows we wouldn't want to place responsibility on them for failing. Nah - it's the guy who's not on the field.

Perfect sense.

 

[superpunk]

Fundamental difference - we run the 3-4, they run the 4-3. Just because you don't acknowledge it doesn't make it untrue.

OMG....seriously? I don't remember not acknowledging that the Giants play a 4-3 (who needs to acknowledge facts, anyway?). I do remember pointing out that their read and react defense works like a charm because they actually have talent when they rush 4.

 

[khiladi]

Just because he was near the players making the catch does not mean he was in position. He has no awareness and he can't locate the ball in the air.

The mistakes of Watkins are similar to the mistakes of Newman his first and second year... Newman couldn't locate the ball in the air worth ****... once he settled, he's become one of the best in the game... The thing that impressed me about Watkin's is his size...

BTW, isn't Zimmer more of a 4-3 guy himself... this is his second year with the 3-4... I don't think that it is his style of play, and he would rather be playing a 4-3...

 

[odog422]

(who needs to acknowledge facts, anyway?).

Exactly the point of your posts. It's your opinion that it's all the players' fault. Because until you can plug in our guys into their scheme and vise versa, that's all it is, your opinion.

However, you can look around the league and see defenses making a difference in ball games based on their SCHEMES, i.e., their coaching.

 

[Wolfpack]

See I was thinking to myself, where can this team possibly improve on Defense. I guess you can never have enough depth and the obvious position is Free Safety and maybe a young NT.

Besides that, where do you go from there?

I too think it is the scheme.

On that long bomb to Plex in the 1st Quarter, they were in Zone Coverage and as soon as Henry released Plex to the next Zone, Eli just chunked it.

Sorry, but Terence Newman and Henry should have been locked up on Plex the entire Game.

Besides safety, I dont think you can improve much on this team defensively.

And I still dont understand why they prefer to blitz Anthony Henry over Newman or at least do it equally.

The play where Newman gave up really his only huge play of the night, they Blitzed Henry.

- Mike G.

very good post and I too think that the scheme is just getting exposed. Cover 2 is not using our talents IMHO, but I know why we played it vs. TEN & WAS.

I would think a man scheme would work better with the downfield attack of NY. NY clearly saw a zone scheme in film and came out attacking it.

Perhaps this is what BP meant by the out coached comment.

 

[MichaelWinicki]

I remember one play he had a wide open shot, more daylight than an Alaskan summer day, right at Brandon Jacobs and completely whiffed.

I could see if that was Barber who made a nice juke. But it was Jacobs, who really didn't even swerve, much less cut.


YAKUZA

Rich that must of been Akin's evil twin because he's been "great" so far...

 

[dbair1967]

I guess it will always be easier to just lay the blanket of blame on "coaching", rather than the overrated players who can't execute the gameplan. Lord knows we wouldn't want to place responsibility on them for failing. Nah - it's the guy who's not on the field.

Perfect sense.

the fact that the same thing happens virtually everytime we play a good team, even though virtually everyone agrees there is talent there says otherwise I think...the players have been changed over...lots of premium draft picks spent on highly talented, playmakers in college...big $$$ was spent in free agency on 3 other good starters, and STILL we see the same garbage all the time

like I said...I'll be happy to bet on it if you like...
no Parcells & Zimmer next yr= very good to excellent defense

David

 

[superpunk]

Exactly the point of your posts. It's your opinion that it's all the players' fault. Because until you can plug in our guys into their scheme and vise versa, that's all it is, your opinion.

However, you can look around the league and see defenses making a difference in ball games based on their SCHEMES, i.e., their coaching.

And it's not an opinion that Zimmer is to fault? Having fun on that double-standard? I see talent winning out on defense around the league. We need talent - or we need the talent we have to step it up.

 

[superpunk]

the fact that the same thing happens virtually everytime we play a good team, even though virtually everyone agrees there is talent there says otherwise I think.

And maybe that's the problem.

 

[kartr]

As bad as what the offense is this defense just slays me.

I can accept some of Watkins problems...

But Canty?

Come'on! We were told how "great" this guy looked coming into the season and instead of playing like he's 6'7, 300lbs he's playing like he's 5'3, 150lbs. And what is it with the little show he puts on after making one tackle?

And our "Pro-Bowl" safety? He couldn't cover Bledsoe. Not too mention he looked scared to death tackling Jacobs.

Forget putting Ferguson into the "Pro-Bowl" too.

I don't believe in teams going exclusively with the 3-4 as the pass rush only is generated from the edges. I believe you must have pressure up the middle from the DT position as it is closer to the opposing qb and disallows him to step up in the pocket. During the Landry and Johnson era's we had solid pressure up the middle from the DT position and that forces qb's run left or right to escape leaving them with the option of throwing on the run;this also halves the field for said qb. We couldn't get adequate pressure on Leftwich or Manning, relatively immobile qb's, anymore than on McNabb, a mobile one.
I favor going back to the 4-3, at least on third and long.

It seems that Jay Alford, DT of Penn State is a pass rushing specialist and is projected as a 2nd or 3rd rounder would be a good option. I propose drafting him in the second and Marcus McCauley,a true shutdown corner in the 1st round next year, I believe that this would go a long way in getting our defense on track, as well as moving Ellis back to LDE and Ware to RDE.

 

[MichaelWinicki]

very good post and I too think that the scheme is just getting exposed. Cover 2 is not using our talents IMHO, but I know why we played it vs. TEN & WAS.

I would think a man scheme would work better with the downfield attack of NY. NY clearly saw a zone scheme in film and came out attacking it.

Perhaps this is what BP meant by the out coached comment.

I agree with that also. We haven't been a good zone team in years. Hell if they want just man-up underneath and play zone deep... fine. But at least have a one of our top-3 corners on Burress.

 

[kartr]

Well at this point I'm for ****-canning virtually the whole staff.

The same, let's bring in Jim Tressel and Troy Smith and see what they can do.

 

[MichaelWinicki]

I don't believe in teams going exclusively with the 3-4 as the pass rush only is generated from the edges. I believe you must have pressure up the middle from the DT position as it is closer to the opposing qb and disallows him to step up in the pocket. During the Landry and Johnson era's we had solid pressure up the middle from the DT position and that forces qb's run left or right to escape leaving them with the option of throwing on the run;this also halves the field for said qb. We couldn't get adequate pressure on Leftwich or Manning, relatively immobile qb's, anymore than on McNabb, a mobile one.
I favor going back to the 4-3, at least on third and long.

It seems that Jay Alford, DT of Penn State is a pass rushing specialist and is projected as a 2nd or 3rd rounder would be a good option. I propose drafting him in the second and Marcus McCauley,a true shutdown corner in the 1st round next year, I believe that this would go a long way in getting our defense on track, as well as moving Ellis back to LDE and Ware to RDE.

I still think we're a better 4-3 team. Move Canty/Spears inside and rotate them with Ferguson at DT. Have Ellis, Ware, Ratliff and Hatcher at DE.

 

[kartr]

I wonder what would happen if we had a freaking free safety.

Garrrrrr......

The whole secondary will be better when we get a pass rushing DT like Jay Alford of Penn State. He's the only good d-lineman they have, and still gets the job done.

 

[Chocolate Lab]

Ugh, I saw kartr's post in a quote...

But I guess he hasn't noticed that we play four-man lines in our nickel. So we do have DTs in there... Problem is, they aren't that good.

But I wouldn't mind a thread detailing how we've misused our resources over the years with this defense, as Mike Winicki is saying. Was it really smart to let Glover walk? Even a guy like Ekuban is contributing to a good defense in Denver. We let these guys go and got nothing in return.

Sure seems like if we were going to *finally* start spending draft picks on our front seven, it would have been better to add to the pieces we already had. Instead, we got nothing for what we had and started completely from scratch. Was that really the best move?

 

[dwmyers]

Watch the Giant drive right before half-time. They didn't come away with any points but they controlled the ball so we didn't have another chance to score... Remember 3rd down and 16? Tiki running for it? Our defense comes up "small" more often than not.

I find this whole analysis laughable.

Great special teams and defensive play nets the Giants 5 points before halftime. That's 5 points.

Romo gives up 17 points with his three interceptions.

17+5 = 22, which means the defense is responsible for 14 points. Maybe. if we blame the first TD on the ref it's only 7, but I think the defense has to account for those kinds of accidents.

And we're complaining about not stopping Tiki, a guy playing like a force of nature these days?

Sorry, if the offense avoids the "mental errors", if Romo could have held onto the ball, we were in pretty good shape, and could have won the game. The Giants secondary was exploitable if you don't give them the cheap picks.

David.

 

[AdamJT13]

I remember one play he had a wide open shot, more daylight than an Alaskan summer day, right at Brandon Jacobs and completely whiffed.

I could see if that was Barber who made a nice juke. But it was Jacobs, who really didn't even swerve, much less cut.

Watch the play again -- it came with 2:02 remaining, when the Giants were running out the clock. The play was supposed to go off-tackle. The fullback blocked outside. Ayodele filled the gap behind the fullback, but Jacobs cut it upfield inside. Had Jacobs followed his blocker off-tackle, Ayodele would have been there to stuff him.

 

[MichaelWinicki]

I find this whole analysis laughable.

Great special teams and defensive play nets the Giants 5 points before halftime. That's 5 points.

Romo gives up 17 points with his three interceptions.

17+5 = 22, which means the defense is responsible for 14 points. Maybe. if we blame the first TD on the ref it's only 7, but I think the defense has to account for those kinds of accidents.

And we're complaining about not stopping Tiki, a guy playing like a force of nature these days?

Sorry, if the offense avoids the "mental errors", if Romo could have held onto the ball, we were in pretty good shape, and could have won the game. The Giants secondary was exploitable if you don't give them the cheap picks.

David.

David I'm not giving the offense a back-slap but damit just this past week on this forum we had knuckleheads trying to come up with "cool" names for this defense.

How about the "Underachievers"?

 

[junk]

The defense is big and physical. They often seem to physically beat up the competition. But they just seem to be a half-step too slow.

Overall, they look ponderous.

I don't know what it is.... Maybe they need a little more quickness at LB? Or maybe this is how an old school physical 3-4 is supposed to look.

I don't know the reason, but they do look ponderous.

I don't think they looked physical last time. Looked like the entire team was afraid to put a hat on Jacobs.

 

[gbrittain]

David I'm not giving the offense a back-slap but damit just this past week on this forum we had knuckleheads trying to come up with "cool" names for this defense.

How about the "Underachievers"?

I think what many are missing is that the expectations of this defense were really high coming into the year.

Lets face it BP has been here four years now and the offense has been put together as if it is the red headed step child.

Clearly the drafts of the past four years have been focused on the defense. This defense was not supposed to be an average to good bend dont break defense. That is not what anyone here was expecting.

We were supposed to be ok with Drew Bledsoe at QB, because we had a dominating defense. After all we have been told over and over that if Trent Dilfer can win a Super Bowl then certainly Bledsoe can with a great defense that Dallas is going to be fielding.

One little problem. This defense is not great at all, unless of course we are playing the Texans and Titans. Those performances actually got a few people excited around here.

This is not a defense to be feared. Sure they are capable of playing you a good game, but it reminds me of a better version of our 2003 defense. That is not what I had in mind when BP brought in the 3-4 and rebuilt our defense.

Our defense is ok and that is about it. Not saying they do not have potential to be exactly what we all had in mind, but that is why we are all so upset with this defense because as you say they are underachieving at best.