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2021 Defensive Thread


vegas492

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Defense wins championships!  My goal here is look at defensive rankings every week and see how we are doing.

We know our offense is gonna be good.  Now we need a killer defensive mentality to win without excellent offense.

But, before we do that, here are some lists.

Greatness achieved, now can it be maintained?  Z. Smith, J. Alexander

Ain't great, but ain't too far away either.  Amos.  Clark.

Breakout pretender or contender?  Savage.  Gary.  K. Barnes.  Keke

Yah, sleep on me and I'll make yah pay.  P. Smith.  

It wasn't me, it was the coach!  K. King

I'm new here, but I'm gonna be big time!  Campbell, Stokes, Jean Charles, Slaton, Heflin

At least I'm not Kevin King.  C. Sullivan

I can screw up less than Redmond.  Literally every other safety on the roster.

I don't know why you guys don't love me.  Lowry. Lancaster.

What's defense?  Burks.

Lets Get It Done, Defense!

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With the exception of the IDL outside of Kenny and Keke, my only concern for the defense is the scheme and not the players. Last year we had the talent for the mostpart but not the scheme as Preston Smith dropped back way too often and we should be pounding the table for a couple specific players roughly that size to fill the role of coverage EDGE. I don't think Garvin or Rivers are those guys and despite his athleticism, Gary isn't either. 

Of course, the $64,000 question is whether or not we improved at CB and whether or not Campbell is an upgrade over Martin. I'm optimistic that both answers are a "yes," but I think we can all agree that our confidence in those answers can increase with a solid performance from those groups this year and potentially another ILB added in the draft next year. I think we could do much better than Ty Summers and Oren Burks...

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I think our defense has all the ingredients.  Playmakers at each level (maybe not ILB).  A lot of guys in their prime.

All they need to do is learn how to tackle!  Lots of kamikaze attempts this pre season that ended up total whiffs.

Stick your nose in there and wrap up!

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1 minute ago, incognito_man said:

Previous seasons' Oren Burks? absolutely.

2021 Oren Burks? eh - he looks like it might have clicked for him and he could be an upper-end ILB#3 in the league this year.

I'm not ready to say 2021 Oren Burks' preseason wasn't a fluke...

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1 hour ago, vegas492 said:

Defense wins championships!  My goal here is look at defensive rankings every week and see how we are doing.

We know our offense is gonna be good.  Now we need a killer defensive mentality to win without excellent offense.

But, before we do that, here are some lists.

Greatness achieved, now can it be maintained?  Z. Smith, J. Alexander

Ain't great, but ain't too far away either.  Amos.  Clark.

Breakout pretender or contender?  Savage.  Gary.  K. Barnes.  Keke

Yah, sleep on me and I'll make yah pay.  P. Smith.  

It wasn't me, it was the coach!  K. King

I'm new here, but I'm gonna be big time!  Campbell, Stokes, Jean Charles, Slaton, Heflin

At least I'm not Kevin King.  C. Sullivan

I can screw up less than Redmond.  Literally every other safety on the roster.

I don't know why you guys don't love me.  Lowry. Lancaster.

What's defense?  Burks.

Lets Get It Done, Defense!

I prefer, "recess is over, looking for redemption." 

I love guys with a chip on their shoulder. Hope I'm loving me some Kevin King this year. 

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1 hour ago, Leader said:

Are the only comments allowed here of the defensive nature? Or can confident, affirmative and positive comments be posted here as well?   :) 

Free country/board, but....

I'd prefer this to be a defense thread.  Let's see what Barry can scheme up, let's talk about what really wins the big games, championship level defense!

I'm excited because we have the stars, we have the steady guys and we have a few young kids ready to explode.

I want to see someone on the defensive side stand up and say to heck with the offense and Aaron Rodgers, let's go win this game ourselves.  Cuz if we get that mentality, ain't no one stopping us.  We have the talent.

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For us to be elite we gotta take the ball away more, we were 25th in takeaways last year. Do we know Barry's style yet? Seemed like he was very vanilla in the preseason for obvious reasons. But is he going to be like Pettine where he's going to play mainly coverage and rush 4 or is he going to blitz a ton more than Pettine when the reg season starts?

The key players im watching are Stokes, King, Sully, Keke, Slaton, and Campbell.

It will be very interesting how they will start the season opposite Jaire, are they just going to have King play until he loses the Job? They did say his injury didn't lose him his job. Our Corners need to take the ball away more for sure. Only 2 total combined from that group last year. 

The DL was a concern coming in since we didn't bring in much help there besides the draft in the offseason. But we were pleasantly surprised by the Play of Slaton and Heflin in the preseason that depth isn't so bad there. Slaton so far looks like he will get a lot of playing time this year if he continues to be effective out there. He will fight Lowry/Lancaster for snaps, if he proves he's a better pass rusher he probably takes one of their spots early. Keke is interesting as he's probably the most polished pass rusher out of everyone except Clark. If he can build on what he did last year this DL can be really good. 

For this defense I'm really only concerned with the coverage opposite of Jaire and how our LBs will do in coverage. Middle of the field has always been an issue for us. Hopefully with the addition of Campbell that gets better there. The wildcard here really is King/Stokes. When it comes down to it we need one of them to be good. I know King wasn't as bad as people thought he played because of his NFCCG performance, but he needs to be his 2019 self if he wants to secure CB2 for at least this year.

But yeah the rest of this defense is beastly Jaire, Clark, Amos, Savage, Z, Gary, Preston. Stay healthy and this defense will be good enough to get back to the NFCCG and beyond, we just need them to bring it that game which they haven't for 2 years straight. 

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1 minute ago, vegas492 said:

Free country/board, but....

I'd prefer this to be a defense thread.  Let's see what Barry can scheme up, let's talk about what really wins the big games, championship level defense!

I'm excited because we have the stars, we have the steady guys and we have a few young kids ready to explode.

I want to see someone on the defensive side stand up and say to heck with the offense and Aaron Rodgers, let's go win this game ourselves.  Cuz if we get that mentality, ain't no one stopping us.  We have the talent.

Someone's in a good mood today

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Things I want to see this year.

A more confident Jaire Alexander.  Let's see some swag and hopefully it rubs off onto other guys.

I want Z being Z.

I want Kenny Clark to dominate full games.  Not just flash his greatness, but sustain it.

I want Gary to make that next stride forward and become a force out there.

2021  slogan "Let's be SAVAGE!!!"

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5 minutes ago, vegas492 said:

Free country/board, but....

I'd prefer this to be a defense thread.  Let's see what Barry can scheme up, let's talk about what really wins the big games, championship level defense!

I'm excited because we have the stars, we have the steady guys and we have a few young kids ready to explode.

I want to see someone on the defensive side stand up and say to heck with the offense and Aaron Rodgers, let's go win this game ourselves.  Cuz if we get that mentality, ain't no one stopping us.  We have the talent.

Actually, I was joking.

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Yeah, I think the pieces are there for sure.  I think it might come down to two big question marks:

1. Can the starters stay healthy most of the season?

2. Is Barry and his scheme going to be a step up (or at the very least, a step sideways) from Pettine's?

If yes to both questions, then I think GB will be tough to face.

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1 hour ago, vegas492 said:

Free country/board, but....

I'd prefer this to be a defense thread.  Let's see what Barry can scheme up, let's talk about what really wins the big games, championship level defense!

I'm excited because we have the stars, we have the steady guys and we have a few young kids ready to explode.

I want to see someone on the defensive side stand up and say to heck with the offense and Aaron Rodgers, let's go win this game ourselves.  Cuz if we get that mentality, ain't no one stopping us.  We have the talent.

Well that is quite offensive! 😁

 

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