2021 RDT

[AFlaccoSeagulls]

35 minutes ago, AngusMcFife said:

I think you have to include Derek Wolfe as well. Even though he was considered  a starter, going into the year he was considered maybe our 4th best DL. 

I don't even consider Wolfe a part of the team at this point. Guy has played, what, 8 total games in 2 years with us? I don't consider him a major loss at all.

35 minutes ago, AngusMcFife said:

Elliot was injured in week 9, and Humphrey was injured in week 13. Our defense was pretty bad even when they were playing playing.

Yeah that's why I didn't really include them, because even when they were healthy this defense was getting pieced up week after week.

35 minutes ago, AngusMcFife said:

Campbell and B-Will have been banged up at times as well, but have played most games.

My overall assessment is that the injuries did hurt the D's performance, but it should not have impacted us so much to go from 9th to 28th best defense (DVOA).  

Agreed with the blue text.

25 minutes ago, DreamKid said:

Can't cosign this. The LJ Fort loss started all of the issues at ILB, Derek Wolfe is a great run defender and valuable part of our rotation, Deshon Elliot going down meant totally inexperienced players like Brandon Stephens got thrown to the flames, and then you have all the craziness at CB. 

LF Fort loss hurt for the first maybe 5-6 games? After that we put Josh Bynes in and PQ moved to the other spot and we were fine. See above for my thoughts on Wolfe and Elliott. This defense was sunk LONG before we were totally decimated at CB due to COVID/injuries.

25 minutes ago, DreamKid said:

You also have the lingering injuries that limited guys like Calais Campbell.

Campbell hasn't made a notable difference when he's played tbh.

25 minutes ago, DreamKid said:

Wink's defense is built around a strong DB core(mostly at CB) propping up the rest of the defense, success often flows through them(this isn't so different from the standard for every NFL club either- CB is King). So an injury at CB is much like a big domino falling on the rest of our defense. 

Okay let's take this at face value - your defense is built around a strong DB core. Yet, your DB core was also somehow completely reliant on Marcus Peters being healthy? Because like I said, without Peters we were  getting shredded all year long despite having a full set of starters.

Beyond that, if you HAVE TO HAVE healthy corners, why are you trading away CB's when your backups are Tavon Young and Jimmy Smith?

25 minutes ago, DreamKid said:

Tackling becoming a major issue is also a key point here. That has nothing to do with scheme and wasn't something we saw in previous seasons nor expected. 

Defensive Coordinator can't be blamed for not coaching proper tackling technique? Maybe not, I'm really honestly not sure who is responsible for that, but yeah our tackling is just pitiful.

25 minutes ago, DreamKid said:

Another oddity is a guy like Marlon Humphrey having a down year before his injury. He was still good overall, but wasn't Great/Elite as he had been and his bad moments hurt us.

I wouldn't even say he was good this year to be completely honest with you.

25 minutes ago, DreamKid said:

In summary, I think a bunch of weird things came together to create a lot of devastation. At a time where the offense was suffering as well. Which gets you what we saw this year in terms of performance. None of this means Wink should totally escape criticism though. The issues with our tackling, specific weaknesses like defending screens and some of the coverage lapses... I think he could have done a better job at addressing. 

Our defense was bad despite returning every starter sans Marcus Peters. It only got worse as we lost more pieces (LJ Fort, Elliott, Humphrey, etc.) and Wink demonstrated that unless he's got 2 absolutely shutdown CB's on the outside, he can't design schemes to do anything. When we weren't blitzing, we were getting shredded. We can't blitz if our guys on the outside are Kevon Seymore and idk the other guy's name.

Let's not forget that even when Elliott was in there, our defense was leading the league by far in 40+(?) yard plays given up because we kept having communication issues in the secondary.

[AngusMcFife]

46 minutes ago, AFlaccoSeagulls said:

I don't even consider Wolfe a part of the team at this point. Guy has played, what, 8 total games in 2 years with us? I don't consider him a major loss at all.

Your memory is a bit off on this one. Last year Wolfe played 14 games and played 50-80% of defensive snaps per game. 

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Defensive Coordinator can't be blamed for not coaching proper tackling technique? Maybe not, I'm really honestly not sure who is responsible for that, but yeah our tackling is just pitiful.

It's a lot easier tackling when defenders are moving forward rather than backwards. When Wink jams all the defenders to the line of scrimmage and has them running backwards into coverage, it's really hard to tackle. 

I agree with your assessment overall.