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Talent or Scheme on Defense?


MacReady

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Which is it?  Because as packfan said, the Bears have done far better against the Saints and the Falcons and probably other similar opponents, so it's not an issue of DVOA.  It can't be an issue of their field because they haven't played every game in Chicago.  If it was all about injuries, the Patriots would be the worst defense in the league, and yet they've literally gotten BETTER the more injuries they've had this season (I'm convinced they're cheating somehow). 

Haha Clinton-Dix was a pro bowl player last year.  Did he just lose talent?
We can literally see the talent from Mike Daniels and Kenny Clark.
Clay Matthews is talented, but is he in the right spot, and does he have talent for what he's doing?
Is it a motivation issue with Perry?  Injury?  He played pretty well with a club last year.
Randall has 11 interceptions in three years, so he clearly has ball skills.  Is he being put in the right situation to excel?
King is probably the most physically gifted corner we've had that I can remember considering his speed and length mix. 

Or... Are all those players, plus Josh Jones, Burnett and Martinez just seemingly talented because we watch them every week? 

Or is it not a lack of talent, but a lack of proper motivation/buying in? 

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I don't think it is all a lack of talent.  Some of the blame has to be the coaches.  TT has put a lot of capital into that side the ball with draft picks and we keep making the same boneheaded mistakes allowing pedestrian QBs look like HOFers.   We give up more first downs on 3rd and long than any team I can think of off the top of my head.

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Just now, squire12 said:

Both scheme and talent, talent and scheme.  Symbiotic relationship to achieve top tier defense

I disagree.  Right now, the Patriots have one of the least talented defenses in the entire league considering injuries, and they've only allowed 20 points in two weeks against Rivers and Ryan.  The Saints are less talented than our defense, and they've been radically changing around as a unit. 

The reason I ask is because something is broken: Our scouting, or our scheme, and we need to find out which it is.

We have five starters on our defense that were fist round picks.  Six if you would allow an exception for King.  We've gone six consecutive seasons drafting a defensive player with our first pick.  Since 2012, 20/29 1st-4th round picks have been defensive players

I don't see how we could be THAT bad at scouting talent. 

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31 minutes ago, HorizontoZenith said:

I disagree.  Right now, the Patriots have one of the least talented defenses in the entire league considering injuries, and they've only allowed 20 points in two weeks against Rivers and Ryan.  The Saints are less talented than our defense, and they've been radically changing around as a unit. 

The reason I ask is because something is broken: Our scouting, or our scheme, and we need to find out which it is.

We have five starters on our defense that were fist round picks.  Six if you would allow an exception for King.  We've gone six consecutive seasons drafting a defensive player with our first pick.  Since 2012, 20/29 1st-4th round picks have been defensive players

I don't see how we could be THAT bad at scouting talent. 

Why must it be one or the other?

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Leaning towards scheme being the problem more than the talent, there are ways to tailor the scheme around your talent and I am not sure (in fact almost certain) we are doing that.

If Fangio is possibly leaving Chicago we should be all over that, to do that we need a vacancy and I am not sure Mike will ever fire Dom. It's not like Mike has never been critical of the defense, but he still remains.

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1 hour ago, HorizontoZenith said:

I disagree.  Right now, the Patriots have one of the least talented defenses in the entire league considering injuries, and they've only allowed 20 points in two weeks against Rivers and Ryan.  The Saints are less talented than our defense, and they've been radically changing around as a unit. 

The reason I ask is because something is broken: Our scouting, or our scheme, and we need to find out which it is.

We have five starters on our defense that were fist round picks.  Six if you would allow an exception for King.  We've gone six consecutive seasons drafting a defensive player with our first pick.  Since 2012, 20/29 1st-4th round picks have been defensive players

I don't see how we could be THAT bad at scouting talent. 

I'd say that of those 20, 8 are (or lookin' to be) plus players for their draft slot (Daniels, Perry, Hayward, HHCD, Ryan, Martinez, Clark, King). 5 are outright busts (Datone, Thornton, Worthy, Bradford, McMillian) and the remaining 7 are mediocre or unknown yet (Randall, Rollins, Fackrell, Lowry, Jones, Adams, Biegel).

Notably, of the top 8, only 4 are currently healthy and contributing fully to the team (HHCD, Ryan, Martinez, Clark). Daniels, Perry and King have missed time/effectiveness due to injuries and Hayward is gone.

I don't see any one thing that stands out to me here. There is talent, there is development and there are busts. I suspect the best two players of this entire group are the last two selected, so I think this may look better in 2-3 years even. Likely will have others in the group of 7 become 'busts' though (Fackrell, Rollins, ?)

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Just now, incognito_man said:

I'd say that of those 20, 8 are (or lookin' to be) plus players for their draft slot (Daniels, Perry, Hayward, HHCD, Ryan, Martinez, Clark, King). 5 are outright busts (Datone, Thornton, Worthy, Bradford, McMillian) and the remaining 7 are mediocre or unknown yet (Randall, Rollins, Fackrell, Lowry, Jones, Adams, Biegel).

Yeah, and those are good numbers, and unless we're all crazy, that's talent.  That's why I lean scheme because I feel like other coordinators could have more succesful defenses, especially with such good DL. 

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2 minutes ago, HorizontoZenith said:

Yeah, and those are good numbers, and unless we're all crazy, that's talent.  That's why I lean scheme because I feel like other coordinators could have more succesful defenses, especially with such good DL. 

I think the biggest problem is there is no premier blue-chipper in that bunch. Daniels is close, Perry could possibly be if he stayed healthy. Clark and King both have the ability to be. If we had gotten say Harrison Smith over Perry or Darius Slay over Datone (or Kelce over Lacy...ugh and I loved Kelce)...or Landon Collins instead of Randall or Javon Hargrave instead of Fackrell :)

Fun to play this what-if game. Safety duo of Smith and Collins, Slay and King on the boundary. Damn...ha

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23 minutes ago, incognito_man said:

I think the biggest problem is there is no premier blue-chipper in that bunch. Daniels is close, Perry could possibly be if he stayed healthy. Clark and King both have the ability to be. If we had gotten say Harrison Smith over Perry or Darius Slay over Datone (or Kelce over Lacy...ugh and I loved Kelce)...or Landon Collins instead of Randall or Javon Hargrave instead of Fackrell :)

Fun to play this what-if game. Safety duo of Smith and Collins, Slay and King on the boundary. Damn...ha

Fun, but also depressing.:(

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Just now, incognito_man said:

I think the biggest problem is there is no premier blue-chipper in that bunch.

I think that's probably the closest thing to the truth out of all of it.  We have talented players, but we don't have a truly dominant player.  I feel like a Joey Bosa/Jalen Ramsey or Charles Woodson type of game wrecker would make this defense a top 10 defense. 

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