Why has our pass D regressed from last season?

[WG]

Our LBing is not much different. Cowart wasn't ever a factor since he didn't play much.

Our DL certainly hasn't gotten worse. It's improved marginally IMO even though it still isn't good.

We added both depth and strength at our starter positions in the secondary and Winfield and Clements have another year under their belts.

So why is the passing D so much worse than last season?

[WG]

Why are we giving up about 10 PPG more?

[TacklingDummy]

Originally posted by Wys Guy
Why are we giving up about 10 PPG more?

Because Henry fumbled twice that went directly for Touchdowns, we had 2 Kickoff returns returned for Touchdowns and Drew has thrown a Interception that went for a Touchdown.

Now thats 35 extra points added onto the points we given up. Since we only played 5 games that comes out to a extra 7 points a game right there.

I don't know were the other 3 points came from.

I remember a punt return Minnesota returned down to our 2 yard line. You could add another 7 points onto the other costly mistakes. But I guess that one goes to the defense since they should be able to stop a team from gaining 2 yards.

[Buffarama]

Playcalling and scheme. If we had last years offense we'd be giving up 60 points a game.

[vmark11]

Yeh, but it's not like we didn't give up any cheap scores last year either. From the first 5 games of last season, I remember defensive TD's against the Steelers, Jets, and Chargers just off the top of my head.

Wys brings up an interesting point - I was thinking the same thing yesterday. I understand how we're bad, I just don't understand how we're worse than last year. Robinson is no LT, but he's an upgrade over Jay Foreman, same w/ Fletcher over Spoon, and Ahonatu over whoever was slated to play DE. I thought all these young guys were supposed to be better with a year of experience under their belts.

[Patrick76777]

OHHHH, OHHHH I’ve got an answer for that.

Dante Culpepper, Randy Moss, Brian Greise, Ed McCaffery, Rod Smith, Rich Gannon, Jerry Rice and Tim Brown.


That could be one of the reasons.

[Buffarama]

Originally posted by vmark11
Yeh, but it's not like we didn't give up any cheap scores last year either. From the first 5 games of last season, I remember defensive TD's against the Steelers, Jets, and Chargers just off the top of my head.

Wys brings up an interesting point - I was thinking the same thing yesterday. I understand how we're bad, I just don't understand how we're worse than last year. Robinson is no LT, but he's an upgrade over Jay Foreman, same w/ Fletcher over Spoon, and Ahonatu over whoever was slated to play DE. I thought all these young guys were supposed to be better with a year of experience under their belts.

The answer is so obvious, most everyone want to be in denial.

ITS COACHING!!!!!

[Patrick76777]

BTW stat-man, Chew on these

V. Testaverde 210 yards passing
D. Culpepper 281 yards passing
B. Griese 211 yards passing
J. Miller 188 yards passing

Not too bad before the big bad Raiders with their 2 Hall of Fame WR’s.

[vmark11]

Originally posted by Buffarama


The answer is so obvious, most everyone want to be in denial.

ITS COACHING!!!!!

The more I think about it, the more I think you're right. The LB's and DB's just don't look that bad on paper.

The DL - well, they need a talent upgrade, but still.....OK, you're not physically talented enough to rush the passer or stuff the run - fine. Can't these defensive gurus devise SOMETHING to disrupt the offense? How about telling the DLmen to put their hands up when they're not getting a rush - I don't think I've seen any of our DLmen get a deflection or bat down a pass all season. How about guessing the snap-count on 2nd&3? If you jump off-sides, who cares? We're giving up TD's on every possession anyways. Just do SOMETHING....ANYTHING, just make a play - PLEASE.

[Kelly The Dog]

I'm getting kind of sick of this scheme argument. We rarely play the "46" as it was designed. We play several kinds of defenses. On most of the plays we got burnt on against the Raiders, the safeties werent playing close to the line at all. On Porter's 29 yard TD Coy Wire was playing deep and simply took three steps to the middle of the field when he was supposed to stay back and cover Porter deep. The cornerback let Porter go expecting deep help but Wire didnt recover in time. Easy TD. Not a scheme problem, it was an inexperienced misread problem. On Garner's sprint to the endzone down the sideline, Wire was also the culprit and was also not up at the line as in the 46 defense, he was back. He went right for Garner but totally misread the angle and/or Garner's speed and got there a yard short so Garner went untouched into the endzone, otherwise it's a 5 yard gain. On Garner's 60+ yard TD catch and run, not only wasn't Fletcher paying attention when the ball was snapped (he was telling another player i didnt see who where to line up) but Pierson Prioleau was the safety, and playing back, and was supposed to help deep but instead went toward Tim Brown so there was no one to catch or stop Garner. Prioleau acknowledged after the game that he simply blew the read. On Jerry Rice's TD it was a simple sideline pass and Clements rushed up and whiffed on the tackle, also allowing an easy TD and not a scheme or 46 defense problem. Granted, our defense was awful on sunday but IMO it's not a scheme problem at all. We just need the players to get experience in it like wire and prioleau and we need a pass rush to force a quarterback into bad throws. Have you noticed that in five games there have been about 2 bad throws aginst us? It's not like were dropping interceptions we're not getting a rush to cause them.

[WG]

TD,

Last year we gave up a bunch of points in the same manor that you described above. So your point is moot in the argument.


76777,

Miller and Testeverde suck and the Jets were w/o Martin anyway.

As to Griese and Culpepper, when teams rush for near 200 yards or more, usually QBs don't have to light things up. Besides, we played easily our best game of the year v. Denver and we still gave up about 400 yards and lost.

Nice try though.

But you think our D is better then?

[Kelly The Dog]

Miller threw for 350+ yards yesterday against Green Bay and Bears totalled 400 yards in offense. Against the Bills they didnt run at all, dinked and dunked for 188 passing yards all game even in OT and scored 17 points.

[The_Philster]

Originally posted by Buffarama


The answer is so obvious, most everyone want to be in denial.

ITS COACHING!!!!!

No doubt about it. How else could you explain why our 3 starting LBs are all playing sub-par and on paper, they looked like one of the top units in the league?

[Earthquake Enyart]

They miss Spoon and Flowers.

[Patrick76777]

Originally posted by Wys Guy
TD,

Last year we gave up a bunch of points in the same manor that you described above. So your point is moot in the argument.


76777,

Miller and Testeverde suck and the Jets were w/o Martin anyway.

As to Griese and Culpepper, when teams rush for near 200 yards or more, usually QBs don't have to light things up. Besides, we played easily our best game of the year v. Denver and we still gave up about 400 yards and lost.

Nice try though.

But you think our D is better then?

Did you change the question? You asked why our pass defense has regressed. I contend that it hasn’t. I didn’t say anything about the run D. I’m saying that the pass D isn’t as bad as you make it seem.