3rd and 5...2:20 Left in the Game...Perry Fewell Has...

it is a combination of factors, it's not any one thing. injuries, scheme, and maybe even the fact that Fewell is jut not a charismatic coach. he doesn't seem to inspire anyone to do much of anything.

the players LOVED playing for Spags. i don't know if that's because they loved his scheme or loved winning or loved him as a person, or all three. but we played with fire under Spags.

this team is going through the motions. and if you think charisma doesn't matter in the NFL, see Tebow, Timothy.

I've never seen a BBIer waffle on one coordinator as much as you have with Fewell..

if this D somehow still blows next year under him with roughly the same personell then the coaching apologists certainly deserve some credit.

I have seen here and other threads that if Spags gets fired he is more likely or willing to go back to Philly and not us. Why is that? Has that been stated?

it's well he teaches his system and concepts. We blew tons of assignments in the first two weeks under Spags. Then we didn't see that again. Under Fewell, the assignments are continually blown and he can't get it fixed. That is a major aspect of coaching and that's why he needs to be replaced.

I thought Perry and his known ability to adjust would be a big boost for this D. However it hasn't been and alot of us including me were wrong in our estimation of him. But this D has plenty of talent on it. Youre delusional to think otherwise. A good DC would almost definitely have us playing alot better than this

are 2 diff things. Ross has good top end speed but just does not appear to have great acceleration and/or change of direction.

excellent post!

when healthy has talent. When Justin Trattou, chase Blackburn, a rookie LB and Tyler Sash are all on the field at the same time, the talent level is sub par.

A good DC would help with this set of player? The healthy ones?

.

but we shouldn't be worst in scoring defense than New England for instance. There are still some talented players. I'd settle for mediocre. We aren't getting that.

agreed. Also when we were healthier we should have been playing like a top 10 D.....dont forget Kiwi who could be playing DE more often.

about how poor of a blitzing team we actually our. The blitzing defenders on this play showed way to early, and stood flat-footed at the LOS waiting for the snap.

It was brutal, and allowed Romo to check into that play.

I don't believe anyone is suggesting PF should have us in the top 10 of defenses with this crew.... but we are historically bad right now. Just flat out awful. Embarassing.

And that is more than just injuries.

if he only has top end speed? Ross has plenty of quickness. You cannot run a 4.3 40 and not be quick.

Jerry Rice ran a 4.65 - he wasn't caught from behind too often - top end speed. Hakeem Nicks gets caught from behind often (i.e., 60 yder Sunday), quick enough, but not a burner.

I'll stick with bad scheming and on Ross' part bad technique.

I have never been a fire the coach guy. I want Coughlin around and I think the people that jump all over Gilbride are idiots. Fewell is differnt.

Anyone here who would rather have PF over Spags.

Absolutely no doubt in my mind that Spags would be doing a far better job with this defense this year and last year over PF.

First: This is an interesting discussion !

Second:

Like to clarify my earlier point about pressure: from what I have seen that the best way to get any QB off his game is knock him down as much as possible. No secondary can keep people covered indefinitely.

Even if on said play Romo had no pressure, if the QB is thinking of pressure and sees a blitz coming he will have to make a quicker decision than normal thus potential for mistakes. I don't think you can say that the 2 things are not connected ( pressure + mistakes )

I always thought that was the balance you shoot for on a defense a) how long will it take us to get to the QB with 3,4,5 etc rushers b) how long can we reasonably keep receivers covered with 3,4,5 rushers.

With 3 rushers ( which fewell has done and drawn my anger ) the QB has had 7+ seconds to throw to someone ( or run ) ... I think in that situation you are letting them off the hook.

I agree 100%. I couldn't describe my opinion any better.

are only preventing us from being a top defensive team, not assuring that we should be horrible.

I completely agree with Dave

The defenses on the Packers, Pats or Saints or so good either..that vaunted defense of Gregg Williams isn't that much good either..

Of our sacks. I know that one reporter did one of JPP and it showed that a lot of his sacks were linked to good coverage. I would bet that a huge percentage of our sacks have been because of the QB holding on to the ball too long or just one of our DL making a great play like JPP last week. I would het very few if any are because of our blitzes getting there in under 3 seconds.

JPP's 2nd sack was on a 3 man rush.

chances of this being a good defense. Start with losing a starting corner. Tuck may as well have been out the whole year cause most anyone could play as well as he has. Prince is still in pre-season game mode. They had no one capable of replacing Goff (that's on Reese.) Osi has been healthy for just a few games. Then add in games without your best LB Boley and a starting safety.

Should they have had better depth to compensate for injuries? Yes, and that is why I think Reese is much over-rated. Is Fewell a good enough coach to overcome these injuries? Obviously not. Does it matter what scheme they use? Beats the hell out of me.

but here are the Points Against for each of those teams:

Packers - 278
Saints - 286
Pats - 274

Giants - 349!


Very few teams are worse than us in PA... and of those 5-6 teams, only the Raiders have a winning record.

We are bad on D! Bad!!!

Osi is the most explosive off the ball of all of our DE's right now..

It was an amazing play but you are asking you DL to make an amazing play every time you call for only 3 rushers. Now, there are times it works but the majority of the time it doesn't. I'm not against a 3 man rush just not that often. I'm not against dropping DEs in coverage just not that often. People notice these things because we get burnt on them not because we make great plays with them. Spags ran some plays that DEs dropped into coverage but fans only started realizing it when Sheridan was getting burned with it. People notice the 3 man rush because the QB has all day to throw pick us apart. Most don't notice that we ran a three man rush against Rodgers in our own territory on third down and got the stop.

the same way Brandon Jacobs runs a blazing 40 time for his size but if you ask him to start/stop/change directions you dont see that speed. Your Jerry rice post is proving my point. Jerry does not have great top end speed but he has great quickness and acceleration (as well as being great at moves to setup defenders). There are always plenty of guys with great straight line speed in the NFL.

Ross has always had some problems covering guys on out/ins/drags etc. On the short TD pass that he gave up he read the quick out route by the WR and made a pretty good break on it but just could not close the gap. it goes beyond a 40 time.

Much worse can this defense be? Why not go down swinging. Will Greenbay score 60? The thing that fewell is afraid of is already happening. So go on the attack.

so forgive me if this has been pointed out. In my opinion, when teams play man and are blitzing, the DB's have to be physical with the WR's at the LOS. The whole point is to disrupt the timing of the play. Ross completely whiffed on the jam which allowed Austin to be wide open.

Nah, i don't think that at all..But if you look at the the total yards allowed, yards per game, and passing yardage, the Pats, Packers, Giants, and Saints are all in that bottom 5. The Saints are a better run defensive team, according to the stats..

have been against top tier QBs.

It is EXTREMELY difficult to jam a slot receiver that is off the line. He should have been playing off coverage in my opinion.

You don't lose games by having less yards than the other team - you lose by having fewer points.

The other metrics are nice, but Points For and Against are ultimately the only stats that matter (outside of W's and L's, of course)

and speed is the opposite of mine. Jerry Rice was slow (4.65) coming off the line, but once he started going was fast. Jacobs is neither quick nor fast - he's slow as molasses off the ball.
I'll leave it there because we just have different views of quickness and fast.

I think those teams know their offenses are going to put up points so they are not afraid to take chances and make mistakes. Us on the other hand are not giving up points because we are taking chances and making mistakes. We look like we are giving up points because we play scared and are afraid to make mistakes. I know that sound weird.

I agree. Press man in cover 0 on a slot WR on 3rd and 5 is asking for failure. He didnt help himself by whiffing totally but he wasnt put in a position to be very successful to begin with.

The other thing I'd mention is that - without looking - I wonder if those teams you mentioned give up yards, etc b/c they usually are in a big lead.

Whereas we play close games and give up our yards/points in key situations.

Is basically it seems like we should be taking more chances.

and you see things like

3 man rushes with your best end lined up at DT,taking on triple teams at times
4 man rushes in which just about every player is watching the qb,not coming forward
Dave Tolefson at DT

Than you take a look in the secondary,and 90% of the time your safeties only show up when they are making a tackle.

That tells you all you need to know about Fewell.All he cares about is turnovers and not giving up the big play.Getting after the quarterback...that's not him.

Right now the Giants have to live with it and see how far they can get,but part of me says not to get my hopes up.

the last 3 weeks. when we played patriots we seemed to play pretty well.If we give up the yards and points this week vs low skill washington team(especially with fred davis suspended) then ill be more concerned.The numbers were a bit skewed on how we played the run sunday and during the yr.Early in the yr we just gave up 1 or 2 big runs every game. On sunday we gave up some runs in the 1st half but in the second half we did a good job. I give no blaim to prince on that long pass to robinson since the only reason he was open is we had zero pressure or anything so he was able to sit and wait.One thing that gets overlooked in the dallas game is how good of a job we did on witten and bryant(save the blown coverage td)

At what point do the players take the blame for their confusion and mis-communications? I'm sorry but I'm looking at the replay of the Dez Bryant blown coverage TD and I can't help but feel that was on the Safety. How much blame can you assign the DC when the safety jumps a short route?

and count how many times we blitz. We blitz at a normal rate, it just never, ever works. That itself is more frustrating than our subpar coverage. We can't get consistent pressure with our front 4, and we can't get pressure when we blitz. Our talent just isn't as good as we think.

in favor of the 3 man rush - I loathe it. I think the OT fell must have falllen sleep there on JPPs sack.
I just cannot believe that this D cannot get one or two blitzes a game to work. At least chase the QB a little. They are futile. How many 3rd and longs have they given up the 1st downs on in the past 6 weeks? It has become a surprise when they do stop somebody rather than a surprise when they give up the 1st down. Its infuriating, even with the injuries they should get some pressure a few times per week.

Rolex said he was where he was supposed to be. That means one of two things. One, Webster doesn't know what was going on or he didn't hear the call. If he didn't hear the call that is on Rolle. If a corner doesn't hear the coverage that is on the safety. If he did then it is on Webster.

at 4:15 is one of the keys. whether it is man or zone, it doesn't seem that fewell is particularly good at teaching guys what to do. they seem lost way too much. and we really haven't seen much improvement from anyone. is there a defender who anyone thinks has shown dramatic improvement since the season began? even without training camp, you'd think that some of these young players would be getting better as a result of all the reps and work. compare it to the breakout guys we have on offense - ballard and cruz, or even hynoski. they are young, inexperienced, and seem to have improved pretty dramatically as the season has gone on. we haven't seen that at all on D.

IMO.

If the players are playing scared or confused - then you're likely to see the breakdowns/missed assignments/confusion that we've seen with some regularity this season.

While that is, of course, the players responsibility - I am inclined to also point the finger at the coaching.

we are on our way to giving up 400 points?

That's excuse enough for a change......injuries aside.

Almost every game we won has been in the 4th quarter..So, no it's not like we have big leads and give up points..my point is, not really to you but to others who keep pointing out fewell, Wiliams suppose to be this guru defesnive coordinator and his Saints are not that good defensiviely..Belichik is also the defensive guru..

I don't think fewell is the greatest, but i think he's playing with far inferior talent right now with the injuries and if you look at cetain losses they had this year, 49'ers, Eagles, Seahawks, they were held to very low scores at times during the games and the offense gave them no help at all..