Do we, though? Acker, Ragland, Pierre Louis are scrap pile guys no other team could keep on their roster, let alone start. Zombo is bad. DJ has lost two steps. Sorenson and Parker are serviceable. That is more than half of our starting defense that is average to terrible.

We aren't loaded with superstars anymore. We have Jones who's great in spurts and peters who's off his game this year. And then Houston who's consistently great. We have a much bigger talent problem than we want to admit. Scheme will help but it can only cover up so much of our talent deficiencies. These aren't guys who became free agents. These are guys who were cut repeatedly by other teams.
[Reply]

This is a problem new to this year. This defense wasn't bad last year once we landed Terrance Mitchell. We fell off a cliff once we lost DJ and were forced to start ramik and Terrance Smith. We were limping into the playoffs without those guys, with Hali and Houston mostly MIA late in the year and without Bailey, Howard, and Poe. Considering that our defense hung in there OK.
[Reply]

Yep. I think the scheme has actually helped in past years so the lack of talent wasn't addressed. When Berry went down, they were effectively done. He was the ONE guy the defense couldn't afford to lose. A play here or there could be the difference in winning one or two games.
[Reply]

I like a lot of the talent we have.

KPL is a quality LB who is a perfect replacement for DJ. He's a quality tackler with the same athleticism DJ had 5 yeas ago. Ragland has really started to come on now that he has had time to figure out the defense and his role.

Aside from coaching, the 2014 draft flaming out is why this defense is so bad. If we get a new DC, OLB opposite Houston and an even average CB, we can be good.
[Reply]

Also, losing Eric Berry could not have been highlighted any more clearly than yesterday.

That Eric Murray fuck up against Jason Witten is a pick 6 if that's Eric Berry on the field.
[Reply]

Is it really Sutton fault that DJ and Tamba are turtles and not the Ninja in a half shell they are just in a shell?
[Reply]

I'd still be happy if Bob is fired today. Still, agree about KPL and Rags. They need to be the starting ILBs from here on. D.J. is hurting the team far more than helping, at this point.

This scheme needs to start playing their CBs aggressively. Stop allowing the easy quick hitters, and maybe the pass rush will show itself.
[Reply]

Here's the upside... that was our best run D of the year by a mile. We actually did a really good job against Elliott. Zeke has been an absolute terror the past month and we kept him under 100 and under 4 YPC. Our D was a much better formula for stopping Pittsburgh than anything we've tried in the past.

The problem is we built this defense to beat New England. We didn't build this defense to beat Pittsburgh or Dallas. First, it was stupid to even try the NE counter against Pittsburgh. Second, the biggest reason for our Dime defense failures has been the long ball - part of that is because of this ridiculous disregard for OPI this season, the second is that our DBs have been comically terrible at guarding the jump ball.

So maybe there is something to work off of. We can run Dime against certain teams, but we have to either limit the jump ball or get significantly better at guarding it. Against power teams, we have to figure something out but at least yesterday we showed ability to flex our personnel.

Unfortunately, our talent is not well built to stop both the run & pass. We probably have to sell out. Our best hope is that our playoff road doesn't include a power team like Pitt and Dallas. Trying to be optimistic here.
[Reply]

We've gone so many years with horrendous ILB play that we have a low bar for what good looks like. Those 2 guys are upgrades. But let's not kid ourselves about how good they actually are. They are better than terrible.
[Reply]

Zombo and acker look like the best players on defense.

Yikes
[Reply]

What? Acker is garbage.
Zombo has one sack

Something is wrong with Houston, be it sickness or injury. Still has 7.5 sacks
[Reply]

Definitely early to say. They looked pretty good in some small sample sizes though.. so I'd hope they give them more looks.
[Reply]

Tamba looked good when he was out there.
[Reply]

You put a player in position to succeed, and they miss a tackle.. or a pick six goes through their arms... or is slow filling their gap. You going to blame that on Sutton? It's not the scheme. You can't hide that many weaknesses with adjustments.
[Reply]

It is a coaching problem.
[Reply]