2011 Defense

[tonyto36]

Defense looked much better today than against the Chiefs.  

At least from the eye test it seemed like Van Noy was better + Wise/Guy were given more snaps + Roberts was limited?

What made today better?  Matchups?  Scheme?  Specific matchups? Different players playing different roles/more less?

Or was it as simple as just not having to do deal with LBs not dealing with any sort of speed out of the back field?

[mcmurtry86]

Need to watch the All 22 before making a definite diagnosis, but from the broadcast feed it looked like they simplified what they were doing. They didn't move their DB's around as much. Their LB's didn't move around much pre-snap. They stuck with the same personnel most of the game.

The DL played a lot better, with Guy/Wise getting more work

Playing Roberts inside and moving Van Noy outside a lot of the time might have helped too. Less Richards on the field as well. I think they gave up on the Richards as a STAR or LB experiment.

The D wasn't too bad most of last week outside of the big chunk plays and played pretty similarly today. More cohesive and more back-to-fundamentals to be sure.

[tonyto36]

Blocked out the disaster of Richards last week.

Flowers I thought played well last week in spite of not much box score praise.  Was double teamed all game but was getting some pressure.

Hopefully Guy and Wise can keep it up.  

[Deadpulse]

I felt like Gilmore still needs to get his bearings. There were a few plays where I felt he dropped the ball. 

[mcmurtry86]

2 minutes ago, Deadpulse said:

I felt like Gilmore still needs to get his bearings. There were a few plays where I felt he dropped the ball. 

He got banged up at some point today, was reportedly limping in the locker room. Not sure if that made a difference.

He definitely needs to get in sync with McCourty, they don't look like they've gotten comfortable with each other yet. Pretty normal for a new CB coming over into an established scheme.

[Hunter2_1]

Need to see some stats (or the All22...how do I get that?) but from the eye-test and if memory serves;

- We rushed 4 a lot of the time (combination of down linemen and backer(s), mostly) and got adequate pressure 

- KVN was outside, mostly, instead of the MLB. He looked to have taken on Hightower's role from WK1 

- Roberts was inside, and used mostly on running downs (as usual). Was pretty average.

- Secondary wasn't great. Gillmore slipped (ffs) which led to another blow. The WRs got behind the CBs often, and Brees found them over their heads. Were it not for 2 breakups for Jones, Brees would have over 400, and the scores would be something more like 36-28.

[Hunter2_1]

also....was the 2011 D really that bad?

[mcmurtry86]

38 minutes ago, Hunter2_1 said:

also....was the 2011 D really that bad?

People bash it because of how many yards they gave up and how many no-names were in the secondary but they were 15th in the league in points and played well in the playoffs.

[ChazStandard]

1 hour ago, mcmurtry86 said:

People bash it because of how many yards they gave up and how many no-names were in the secondary but they were 15th in the league in points and played well in the playoffs.

They also tend to forget that 2011 was a down year for defenses across the league, the lock-out quite obviously disproportionately hurt defensive cohesion everywhere. There were 4 5000 yard passers that year, and several more in the high 4000s.