Granted I watched at a bar, but I saw Sean Smith more at Safety in this game then CB. I would love to hear Sparanos thoughts on the issue.
I think he's going to continue splitting time. It's a formation by formation thing. Not a lot of people seem to realize it, but Yeremiah Bell is basically a Safety/Linebacker hybrid. In Nickel packages, our worst passing-down linebacker comes out, and Yeremiah Bell switches positions, with someone else(Generally Tyrone Culver the last two years) manning Strong Safety. That's been our predominant Nickel package since Sparano took over. This year, when Sean Smith got benched for Jason Allen, he took over for Culver at the position, and they seem to be continuing to do it with Smith starting.
They wanted Al Harris in the game in our nickel/dime packages. The way they did that was to have Sean Smith man the same dime corner/safety position he played when Jason Allen took his starting job. He was a starting CB today though. He will continue to be a starting CB. This is the third game in a row he outperformed Vontae Davis.
Harris saved a potential first down that could've led to or been a Touchdown. Smith was good though too, that side of the field feels much better now than it did 2 or 3 weeks ago. I wonder if Al Harris will see more time on Thursday since he knows the Bears well. I'd LOVE it if he picked off Cutler. We may need picks, sacks might be harder to come by if Wake sits the game out.
Gotcha. Although I'm not sure how Smith played better then Vonte, Vonte had that PI, and gave up that short TD. And that was it. He made a great play in the run game on 3rd and short. Sean was at fault in that Chris Johnson TD run. I don't remember off hand Smith getting beat much in coverage. Our secondary played well today.
Harris played well, so did Smith. But how about those frigid 3 plays in a row by Rashad Jones? That was impressive.
Bingo. That's exactly how he got outplayed by Sean Smith. And Sean Smith was not THE guy at fault for that Chris Johnson touchdown. He hit the wrong hole but other guys lost contain and lost their gaps too. And Chris Clemons' angle to the ball late in the run was lacking as well, which is common for him. Sean Smith outplayed Vontae for a third game in a row.
Jones looked awesome when the game was on the line late. We may have a very good young player on our hands.
Yup obviously the Titans thought they could exploit the new guy back there and Jones made them pay for it.