Originally Posted by Tribal Warfare:
Tamba and DJ got old and off the team, Sutton ruined Poe's career, Houston got injured and isn't what he once was, and Berry Achilles and cancer set backs.
The All-Pro defense has aged and got injured through Bob's tenure. He can't adapt thus the defensive corps is failing miserably.
Those guys were always hurt throughout Suttons tenure.
The biggest problem is that Suttons bread and butter was that dime defense and that relies on our corners to be really aggressive. With the emphasis on defensive holding and PI its impossible for him to run it.
Remember early last year he was the toast of the town. But we kept getting destroyed on jump balls. I don't agree at all with the narrative that he was carried by talent early on. Seems more likely hes trying to adapt to the new nfl but doesn't know how. [Reply]
Originally Posted by chiefzilla1501:
Those guys were always hurt throughout Suttons tenure.
The biggest problem is that Suttons bread and butter was that dime defense and that relies on our corners to be really aggressive. With the emphasis on defensive holding and PI its impossible for him to run it.
Remember early last year he was the toast of the town. But we kept getting destroyed on jump balls. I don't agree at all with the narrative that he was carried by talent early on. Seems more likely hes trying to adapt to the new nfl but doesn't know how.
Originally Posted by UChieffyBugger:
It really does reflect very badly on both Reid and Veach how one contrived to keep this man in the job, and the other managed to provide him with the worst secondary known to man. Reid's flaws are well documented, but Veach really needs to look himself in the mirror next offseason, because his signings are draft picks haven't lived up to the billing thus far.
Veach told us he was fixing that run D, sure happened. [Reply]
I've bashed Sutton quite a bit -- mainly for the playoff debacles, but if you look at the stats, we're not that bad on D. Middle of the pack on yards per pass play, middle of the pack on opposition QB rating. Yep, we are bad against the run, but does that really matter? We're tied for last with the Rams and the Pats on that.
The good defenses stop the pass, not the run, and we're actually not that bad against the pass. Our total numbers are inflated because of the garbage yardage we've given up. Yards per play is what's important.
Not arguing that the D is good or even adequate, but it is far from being the worst ever. It's not the worst in the league this year.
If we get Watkins back healthy and get healthy on the O-line, we're marginally the best team in the league, despite our unimpressive D. [Reply]
Originally Posted by FringeNC:
I've bashed Sutton quite a bit -- mainly for the playoff debacles, but if you look at the stats, we're not that bad on D. Middle of the pack on yards per pass play, middle of the pack on opposition QB rating. Yep, we are bad against the run, but does that really matter? We're tied for last with the Rams and the Pats on that.
The good defenses stop the pass, not the run, and we're actually not that bad against the pass. Our total numbers are inflated because of the garbage yardage we've given up. Yards per play is what's important.
Not arguing that the D is good or even adequate, but it is far from being the worst ever. It's not the worst in the league this year.
If we get Watkins back healthy and get healthy on the O-line, we're marginally the best team in the league, despite our unimpressive D.
They're not clutch at all in the 3 losses they gave up game winning drives at the end. They commit a lot of penalties and losing Hunt hurt because it probably cost us the Chargers game. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Mecca:
They're not clutch at all in the 3 losses they gave up game winning drives at the end. They commit a lot of penalties and losing Hunt hurt because it probably cost us the Chargers game.
How did losing Hunt cost them the Charger game? [Reply]
Originally Posted by O.city:
How did losing Hunt cost them the Charger game?
Cause I'm pretty sure on that offensive drive in between the Chargers posession's he would have provided more than a run for a loss. Like it or not but his ability to always break tackles and find a crease made our sorry run blocking OL look a lot better than it really is. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Mecca:
Cause I'm pretty sure on that offensive drive in between the Chargers posession's he would have provided more than a run for a loss. Like it or not but his ability to always break tackles and find a crease made our sorry run blocking OL look a lot better than it really is.
Sure but unless he’s breaking 2 tackles in the backfield I don’t think it would have mattered [Reply]
Originally Posted by Mecca:
Cause I'm pretty sure on that offensive drive in between the Chargers posession's he would have provided more than a run for a loss. Like it or not but his ability to always break tackles and find a crease made our sorry run blocking OL look a lot better than it really is.
Originally Posted by FringeNC:
I've bashed Sutton quite a bit -- mainly for the playoff debacles, but if you look at the stats, we're not that bad on D. Middle of the pack on yards per pass play, middle of the pack on opposition QB rating. Yep, we are bad against the run, but does that really matter? We're tied for last with the Rams and the Pats on that.
The good defenses stop the pass, not the run, and we're actually not that bad against the pass. Our total numbers are inflated because of the garbage yardage we've given up. Yards per play is what's important.
Not arguing that the D is good or even adequate, but it is far from being the worst ever. It's not the worst in the league this year.
If we get Watkins back healthy and get healthy on the O-line, we're marginally the best team in the league, despite our unimpressive D.
I agree with your take. If Berry can play well, this D should be adequate.
The safety play was a disaster this season. [Reply]
Man, the more and more review you do of that SD game...
Ugh, it was bad. It was bad on so many fronts. I just don't have the stomach to list them but it was a ceiling to floor failure of leadership, accountability and yes - scheme. Or at least the philosophy on how to implement it.
At several points throughout this season I've defended Sutton's game-calling as adequate to even good, but that Chargers game, especially the 2nd half, is just an absolute disaster.
It's pretty damn disheartening, to be honest. It makes it hard to not be fatalistic about the post-season. I mean I don't understand how the team could play with so little energy in that half. I don't understand how Suttons response to that lack of energy is to effectively change nothing from a personnel standpoint AND go into a shell.
Basic military leadership says that if you have your troops on their heels, it's time to affix bayonets and attack. Do SOMETHING to override the malaise. And instead Sutton doubled down and had them digging trenches. Jesus that was bad.
It's the 2nd time this season that I've really walked away from a game thinking that Sutton had directly failed that team. The other one was the Patriots game - just a bad gameplan executed poorly with little to no long-term accountability. We just saw 2.0 on that game and I just see no reason to believe that we'll get through 2 or 3 post-season games without seeing version 3 pop up. And the first time it does, the season's over.
Man...that game is just soul-crushing the more you dig into it. [Reply]
Originally Posted by DJ's left nut:
Man, the more and more review you do of that SD game...
Ugh, it was bad. It was bad on so many fronts. I just don't have the stomach to list them but it was a ceiling to floor failure of leadership, accountability and yes - scheme. Or at least the philosophy on how to implement it.
At several points throughout this season I've defended Sutton's game-calling as adequate to even good, but that Chargers game, especially the 2nd half, is just an absolute disaster.
It's pretty damn disheartening, to be honest. It makes it hard to not be fatalistic about the post-season. I mean I don't understand how the team could play with so little energy in that half. I don't understand how Suttons response to that lack of energy is to effectively change nothing from a personnel standpoint AND go into a shell.
Basic military leadership says that if you have your troops on their heels, it's time to affix bayonets and attack. Do SOMETHING to override the malaise. And instead Sutton doubled down and had them digging trenches. Jesus that was bad.
It's the 2nd time this season that I've really walked away from a game thinking that Sutton had directly failed that team. The other one was the Patriots game - just a bad gameplan executed poorly with little to no long-term accountability. We just saw 2.0 on that game and I just see no reason to believe that we'll get through 2 or 3 post-season games without seeing version 3 pop up. And the first time it does, the season's over.
Man...that game is just soul-crushing the more you dig into it.
I just posted about it in the gameday thread. We were there and I was a little hammered so I finally went back and watched some of it.
My god. They just actively looked like they didn't give a shit in the 2nd half. The defense was just ……...there. They weren't aggressive.
I don't really care if it's a scheme thing or a personnel thing or what it is, heads gotta roll. [Reply]
