I don't mean the question in the subject line literally. But - and it's silly how this didn't occur to me sooner - but I was going through the snap counts of our linebackers and comparing those figures between the 2016 and 2017 teams. It's really striking to see who was playing and how those snaps were distributed among our players. In short, the question of why our defensive output had such a significant drop off between 2016 and 2017 may be a simple as the fact that the talent drop off in those years best explains it. In other words, those who are extremely nervous about retaining Spags as the defensive coordinator might consider giving Spags a little more credit, since he was working with a significantly worse unit as a whole.
In 2016, Keenan Robinson and Jonathan Casillas saw the bulk of defensive snaps among LBs with roughly 70% of defensive snaps each. Kennard and Sheppard saw the third and fourth most with 48% and 41% respectively. Other players only made up a combined 31 snaps, less than 3% of D snaps combined.
In 2017, Kennard saw the most snaps at LB with around the same amount (49%) as in 2016, reflecting that the WLB and nickle MLB were positions that faced a lot of injury. This is shown in the fact that Casillas (8 games played, 41% of D snaps) and Robinson (6 games played, 26% of D snaps) played significantly less than last year. Not to mention, Casillas' and Robinson's play had dropped off in part due to their injuries, lack of continuity having to come back cold off of injury, and in part due to age in the case of Casillas.
Goodson also replaced Sheppard as the base MLB; however, he also faced injury, managing to only play 33.8% of snaps missing 9 games completely. Furthermore, Sheppard was also brought back after Goodson lost time due to injury tallying a surprising amount of snaps 35% of the total D snaps in only 7 games. This indicates that the starting base MLB saw an expanded role due to the injuries to Casillas and Robinson.
Also making up for those lost snaps, Calvin Munson the UDFA WLB saw 35% of snaps, who while serviceable relative to Uani Unga, is simply an inferior athlete relative to the players he was replacing. He finished with a 38.8 grade at PFF good for 78th best LB in the league.
Additionally, whereas in 2016 we only really had a mix of four linebackers with any significant playing time, in 2017 we had 8 linebackers who saw at least 50 snaps or more. Grant and Armstrong - street FA - saw roughly 15% of the D snaps at LB combined.
So, I think an understated problem with our D was the talent at LB. Obviously, we know that LB is a problem with the team, but I think the specific problems that unit faced in 2017 got a little lost in the shuffle.
Furthermore, looking at the secondary, there were two major factors that seemed to suggest a talent deficiency. First, the difference at FS in the play between Andrew Adams/Leon Hall in 2016 and Darian Thompson in 2017 was a significant drop off. Thompson graded 52.2 at PFF, good for the 69th best safety (Adams graded at a 70.1 per PFF in 2017 and 79.4 in 2016). Thompson also saw 96.4% of D snaps. The most snaps of anyone in the secondary.
The second point is that there was a drop off in snaps seen for our best secondary players between 2016 and 2017, Collins saw 17.3% less snaps, Jenkins saw 30.1% less snaps, DRC saw 11.1% less snaps, Eli Apple saw 4.4% less snaps, Adams saw 42.1% less snaps.
The biggest addition - Ross Cockrell - saw a total of 61.6% of defensive snaps in 2017 and played at a high level (81.6 per PFF, the 40th best CB), but I don't think the difference between Ross Cockrell 2017 and Eli Apple 2016 makes up for the loss of play of these other parts.
I just thought I'd throw this out there as a caveat to those who are quick to hate on Spags. Also, while you may not think Spags should be the guy due to the potential low floor of his teams, you can't deny that he also has a very high ceiling for the teams he has put together in the past. So, for those who are willing to gamble on high ceilings, maybe Spags isn't so bad after all.
First- JPP and Vernon were shells of themselves compared to 2016. With less effective pass rush, the entire D predicted on not having as many required to send to generate pressure exposed holes in the LB corps.
Second- The D was was less effective with Goodson missing so much time to injury. I didn’t look st stars with him in the lineup versus out, but can tell you the defense seemed out of place more times than not without him in (mlb is defensive QB) and far less physical.
It def. "felt" like more injuries on defense this year, and certainly the DEs did not perform. Add in DB suspensions and that is the thing that stickks out in my memory.
But reading this and looking back, I def. missed Robinson this year. Seemed like one of the few Lbs in recent memory that could cover anyone (TE/RB) JC was a captain, and Goodsen looked great in brief appearences. Didn't realize how much time they missed. The whole season went in the toilet pretty quick.
Robinson was always considered talented, but injury prone. (classic Jerry Reese shopping on the discount rack for LB) I do think LB is a vital position to make spags defense "go" Hopefully we can get a legit LB or 2 under Gettles.
If you are telling me that the dropoff is due to even "worse" play from out Free Safeties and Linebackers...then that reaches scary proportions...
D lines by necessity getting much bigger and more athletic to respond to major growth of offensive lines....but also... Passing game getting quicker..
So you kind of have to pick your poison...you want an extra rusher that can handle an OT? Much bigger..
...you want a player that can get ints and zone defend passes? Typically quicker and smaller.
Both is rare enough to question the motive to look generally.
Thus the 5-0-6 which may look.like a 4-2-5
Whereas old 'skinny skinny' ,(4 aces, I e. DEs) doesn't work well right now (gets run all over)..
..spags simply didn't have the horses to run ravens (two gigantic and good nose DTS to keep the lbs clean)
...had crap lbs also mostly... And didn't come up with any third way...
Either way, to me, due to trends on OL across the league, both ways you need 2 seriously outstanding DTS, a much more variable gap attack d
Well. The lbs are far too small to overpower most OTs...and also far to slow to
Run around them...
You only have one snacks, so:
To maintain gap integrity you kind of hamstring your - entire DL. In that they cannot get too aggressive.
With two giant NTs however, if playmakers, you can attack with the DL in almost any configuration.
And use smaller quicker lbs or even safeties.
While Giants record on even caring about drafting LBs speaks for itself with so little attention, when we do pull the trigger on drafting them, we still don't get it done.
And save me the rhetoric on "its not as important a position as DEs and CBs" because the only good ones we have at those positions are ones we broke the bank on in Free Agency.
Looking forward to some change of pace as to how we scout and draft...