Everyone is talking OL, Jones, and coaching, which are all huge problems to be sure.
But our defense doesn't have a chance to succeed against a good QB like Brady because our pass rush is a complete zero. Given our talent on D, our defensive philosophy makes sense in the modern era.
- Make teams string together a lot of plays
- Force/hope for mistakes
- Force/hope for FGs in the red zone
Without a pass rush, that's all we can do. And it works sometimes - the Raiders game is a great example. We held them to FGs and Carr made a big mistake. That translated into a win.
That's just not going to work against Tom Brady. We got the big mistake from Mike Evans, but it wasn't nearly enough. You can't blitz him (and we don't have guys who are good at blitzing). You can't touch him with a 4 man rush. You've got nothing.
To actually be good we need 1) pass rushers who can make destructive plays and 2) an offense that can keep pace with good offenses.
Given how much draft capital we've had and how much FA money we've spent, it's astonishing how bad our pass rush is. If people want to fire Graham, that's fine with me - fire everyone. But I think there's merit to the philosophy he's deploying given the talent at his disposal.
It's like fighting Tyson and not blocking your head
I would send kitchen sink...have the 3 corners match up press man coverage with safety help.
This is why I warned against the investment in Leo. Love the player but $21M per on a 3-4 DE doesn't add up, especially when your Edge talent isn't where it needs to be.
I would send kitchen sink...have the 3 corners match up press man coverage with safety help.
So then TB scores in 4 seconds rather than 4 minutes. Tom Brady would shred an all out blitz, and who is covering Evans, Godwin or Gronk one-on-one? I'm not saying Graham is free of blame, but he was left with few options. This is a failure of talent acquisition.
Judge, Graham, and Garrett are all coaching painfully conservative and scared, and the players are performing as such.
So either get a good pass rush and/or get an OL & good QB yourself to keep up...
This is why I warned against the investment in Leo. Love the player but $21M per on a 3-4 DE doesn't add up, especially when your Edge talent isn't where it needs to be.
Can’t understand it, particularly since Gettleman listed pass rush as one of his pillars of running a team. Yet he hasn’t tried to get good pass rushers throughout his tenure as GM. On the other hand I wonder if there is a coaching or personnel problem with why our guys aren’t winning upfront matchups and mostly using nothing but bull rush particularly on the edge; are they not trying to win because they want to contain the quarterback (coaching problem) or is it a physical problem, that our guys aren’t winning matchups because they’re not built to bull rush?
I would send kitchen sink...have the 3 corners match up press man coverage with safety help.
You can't blitz Brady, or Mahomes for that matter. They're too smart reading the blitz, they see what you are giving to them, and they know where to go.
Brady shreds blitzes.
If Brady was playing the 85 Bears he would put them to sleep.
And if you go all out on Brady he would put 60 up on you.
This is why nobody does it.