Apologies to those of you who addressed this in Beason's injury thread... I just feel like some good discussion there could be lost
amongst general injury updates, tweets, sidebars, etc.
What are we gonna do here, guys? We saw what Beason did for our defense last year... the difference was remarkable. There have been a lot of "I told you so's" around here with him getting hurt again, but all that aside, we need someone to provide a tremendous lift for us on Sunday or we will be staring at 0-3 and... very likely... another lost season. He really was the one guy we couldn't afford to lose in my opinion.
We have a lot of options, but none of them seem too enticing:
- What's up with Paysinger?
- Are we really going with Herzlich?
- How about running a three-safety set with regularity?
- With Thurmond out, is it even worth discussing extra use of a nickel corner?
- Five down lineman?
- Will we shift McClain over regardless of who the 11th man on the field is?
This is not an a question with a long term solution as an answer. At least not right now. What the hell are we going to do to stop the run on Sunday?
I'd also put JW on the bench where he belongs once Kennard returns healthy. JW is a mistake machine, and we need some toughness to set the edge etc that he simply won't do.
Paysinger/McClain/Kennard might be the best combo on the roster, which is sad.
You usually don't notice guys sucking as bad as Herzlich was last Sunday. He immediately made a negative impact play after play when he came in. Fewell will have to do a much better job of filling the gap left by Beason.
Doesn't appear so
Three safety set? Who will be the third safety that can be trusted? Demps? Berhe?
At this point with Beason/Kennard/Thurmond gone for a bit, do we even trust Fewell and what we have on the 53 man roster to adequately fix what ails us on defense? I do not.
We will see more of Paysinger, and maybe even Fox if he's added to the 53 (but I doubt he'll play).
Tough questions, tough choices. We can only hope for the best........
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Herlich will play a lot is my guess or we see lots of the 3 safety look. Either way it's bad.