I took a look at PFF's player rankings after 3 weeks, and there are only 2 of our players playing to their talent. We have the same coach. We have mostly the same players. We have another year of experience. Yet 13 of 15 players have SUCKED. I think that player's rankings at their position is a fair way to see how they are doing. A closer look. DL- Starks is #3 and playing great. Langford is #22 but, seems to have woken up. Soliai is #24, and not the same as last year. Odrick is #24 with limited snaps. LBs- Wake is #3 and playing well, with a few problems. Misi is #17, and so-so. JT is #21, and up and down. Dansby is #48. Burnett is #49 (of 49 listed). This is pathetic. Anyone miss Crowder? S- Bell is #58. Jones id #61. Combined, they have been mostly as bad as bad can be. CB- Smith is #46. W Allen is #50. Davis is #55. Carroll is #100. If I change to all CBs, "Little Jimmy Wilson " is #60, with Smith moving to #77. Combined, they have been as bad as bad can be. Wilson was not included in my 15 but, was the only one with balls enough to blame himself for costing us a win in his post game interview. For the 13 of 15 NOT playing, they should follow his lead. They have no excuse with coaching or practice habits, they did not change from last year. They have no excuse with talent, they all proved it last year. The only problem they need to look at is in a mirror, and they should NOT like what they are seeing.
We've sucked, but I do not miss Channing Crowder..The team needed to move on from that leadership source, and that skillset.
I believe there was a study by Football Outsiders a few years back that concluded teams offenses are more likely to maintain a high level of play, as opposed to defenses, which tend to regress more randomly. That passes the eye test to me, because if you look around the league, there really aren't any teams that consistently have great defenses. You could probably put PIT in that category. But even a team like the Jets has been pretty poor defensively this year, after being solid last year.
Yeremiah Bell has played more Cover 4/2 than I have seen in years. The injury to Davis and the lack of tackling ability from Benny Sapp has decimated this secondary. When Davis recovers from injury I think you will see Yeremiah Bell show up in the defense again................and not until that time.
There are a few valid reasons for the very poor play of our D but, no where near enough to explain the horrible play of all these players getting their *** beat one on one. NONE!
Poor linebacker play combined with a poor secondary is making this defense look terrible. To be honest, I haven't seen anything out of Dansby that would dictate the contract he received to come here. Burnett is just as bad at run defense as Crowder was versus the pass. Throw in a trade of Carrol for Davis, a hole at the nickelback, and a gambler at FS - I think the problems are pegged.
So basically: Dansby and Burnett are the worst pair of 3-4 ILB's Bell and Jones are the worst pair of Safeties Nice, a 4 pack of suck.
It is hard for me to blame the Cb's alone Sb, they work in tandem with the Safeties, bad Cb play can be covered for by good safety play, bad safety play makes good Cb play look terrible.
Yes, it's the thing that gets lost in all the numbers crunching. The coverage dictates the front so if you can't cover what sucks next? The front......
Exactly, so the "solution" has been to play Zone, with Cb's who are more man to man types of players. Imho the first solution is to get Reshad Jones off of the field, then sub Will Allen for Nolan Carrol. Clearly though, Nolan has his work cut out for him, I do think we have the pieces, I also think the early injuries have forced the D into bad player decisions.
I think the player to sub off of the field is Yeremiah Bell. I think Jones can grow into a good player if he was playing in the box as Bell often does.
An entire group of individuals, all a supposed team, are all simultaneously not doing their best work. There is no WAY hey all simultaneously having totally separate personal attitude shifts towards motivation. It is so obvious at this point that the problem isbad coaching situation (worsened by an owner trying to replace him and failing) can make over 80% of a team's players decline abruptly. They're not practicing well, not prepared, not trying hard enough to execute on game day, etc. It's like a class of 'badly behaving kids' at school... if a group of 50+ kids who were good suddenly all go from A's and B's to F's and don;t seem to care enough, then you look at the TEACHER, not the kids. It is clearly, as your data shows, a systemic problem.. meaning it has to do with the systems being applied to everyone on the team. That starts from up top... coaching. now, the coach himself may have been affected by the GM and or owner. Anyone cleaving to the players being the main problem are barking up the butt-end of a fish at this point and aren;t going to see any solutions that way.
Even if the team weren't talented there are simply things on the football field that they aren't doing. It's very hard to evaluate anyone with proper coaching. That's what makes Henne such a pain.
I think if the defense plays the same way they have the past 2 weeks, they'll end up the season at the same level as 2010. They allowed 21 ppg last year, and this year they've allowed 38, 23, 17.
I was about to mention the declining points allowed totals, and NO defense has been particularly good this yr. Raiders ran wild on the Jest for example, as time rolls along that will even out.
I agree with that. Things on defense may fix themselves as we go through the season. If they can get better play from the ILBs it'll be even better.
I tend to agree SB, and then some. IF they pay to their talent, they "can be" as good as anyone. I put it on the players, not coaching to do so.
Just to put things in perspective... This year, after 3 weeks, there have been 5 teams that have allowed less than 18 ppg Last year, after 3 weeks, there were 12 teams that allowed less than 18ppg
The one thing they should be able to improve on should be their running stopping. Aaron Curry is available, I'd give him a look at Burnett's spot.
The improvement should take place from within. It is not much to ask for in players playing as they have already done.
And the pats game is the bowling ball in the snake so to speak, the Texans hung 33 on the saints, so we did not do to badly vs them