Richard Smith, am I the Only One?
 

When I go to the different boards, I see a hatred for the our DC Richard Smith. I get the dissatisfaction, but wait a minute, let's think about it here for a second.

In year one we changed to a 4-3, many of players where better suited for the 3-4, though only slightly so. That said, we had to install a complete new defense to guys playing out of position, and we relied on rookies for the leadership during the transition.

Year two, the talent was getting better, and closer to a real NFL squad, but 17 player on the IR, and no team can survive. The fact that the defense continued to improve and two players may have broken into the All Pro ranks again shows excellent leadership.

As we start year 3, most fans still do not have a solid idea of the defenses persona, and that is a problem, but we have a DC who appears to be flexible enough to cater is playbook to suit his roster, and he and his coaches seem to be solid teachers.

I like Richard Smith, I have back to the the House of Pain days, and I like his coaches, Hoke, Holland, Bush, and Franklin. I hope we are able to keep the group together.

i like his coaches more than i like him. you say he caters his playbook to the roster...that's a pretty picture to paint but i call it "watering down". i get most of what has been explained about his defense but i think he largely ignores certain players' ::cough::demeco::cough:: special attributes in favor of a blank defense. excuse me, not blank, "vanilla".

i will say with the d'line turning up the way it is, with the sudden depth we have now at LB, with all the returning from injury in the defensive backfield (don't forget about ray rhodes) we should see a much improved defense. i just don't know if i should attribute that to smith or to player development or to increased depth.

this will be the first year we really get an idea of what we have in him as a coach. with all teh injuries and changes . . .AND lack of depth he has been working with i dont know that anyone would be coachign up to their potential. i dont have a problem with "watering down" the defense last year. it appeared to work better than what we were doing earlier, and honestly that is what the coach is supposed to do, get them most out of what he has. if we stay relatively healthy this season we will be able to have a better idea of what we have in our DC

I think a lot of people dislike him because they see a timid defense and want more aggressive play. What a lot of people forget is that the few times we have tried to be aggressive, it has backfired more often than not.

I'm not a big Smith fan so I'm not sure why I'm defending him, but when you have suspect corners and safeties and linebackers (except for Demeco) who are terrible at blitzing, it's tough to run much more than a vanilla defense.

Let's face it, this team put its picks and money in the front four and our D will sink or swim based upon their ability to get to the passer with just a 4 man rush. So far, the results have been mixed. Mario - good, potentially great; Amobi - developing, high hopes; T. Johnson - somewhere between average and bust depending on your point of view; Weaver - disappointment, considering the money.

I don't really have an opinion on him. He gets a mulligan on the transition year from a 3-4 to a 4-3. I think our defense should have been better last year....but with as much turnover as we had in our already shaky secondary he gets a little bit of a break.

We have invested a lot in our defense, not only in the draft but with guys like Will Demps, Jaque Reeves, and no Colvin. I think we need to see something from the d as a unit this year. I don't know if it's quite time to say it's his make or break year....but its getting close.

I see a lot of disdain for him as well. I hear the "vanilla" complaints, and understand them to some extent, but I have some thoughts on that as well.

One big complaint that I hear is that we didn't blitz enough. I would like to see more blitzing, but I think some of the complaints aren't based on realistic expectations....maybe it's because of Madden. I have seen some stuff where it sounds like we never blitzed at all. Losing Dunta probably hurt us in this department as well. As much as we all loved Bennet last year, Dunta was the one corner the coaches felt, and rightly so, that they could leave on an island....freeing up other guys to blitz.

I want to see this defense really take a step forward this year and carve out some type of identity. Like a draft pick I will wait until the end of his third season to pass judgement.

Most people are unable to look at a def and realize that they are setup for a completly different call than they were the last snap. They see blitz, sack, tackle, int, and big plays against the def but fail to see everything else.

Smith's def may have been pretty watered down the last two years, and rightfully so with the transition and injuries, but it isnt like he has them go out in the same formation and play exactly the same every play.

Our off has been watered down the last two years also, and they are starting to open it up more this year, but no one is bitching about Kubiak's off being vanilla. Partly because its way better than the crap we had before, and partly because it is easier to see the production from the off.

I honestly dont know if Smith is a good coodinator, but we do know that Kubes wants a bend dont break style def and it is up to Smith to deliver. We know that Kubes preaches pressure from the front 4 and limited blitzing, and it is up to Smith to deliver.

Last year when TJ got his int because he was running to get into position from a last minute sub Kubiak was upset because he didnt want any subs in that position. The point is Kubiak isnt the HC that says I am good at Off so I am going to leave the def to someone else. Those types of HC's are glorified coordinators IMO. Kubiak has his fingers in both sides of the ball on and off the field.

Maybe the question shouldnt be does Smith suck, but does Kubiak's def philosophy suck? Which Smith has to adhere to.

I think we have a winner!

this is exactly why i don't appreciate his defense and philosophy of "bend don't break". except i remember it as when we took the aggression out good things happened. matter of perception i suppose?

one thing is certain: "bend but don't break" can REALLY EASILY be "bend over" and that's what happened for a majority of last year.

in my opinion a defense can be passive or aggressive. passive, which we employ, is too reactionary for my likes. i would LOVE to see more forcing action onto the offense instead of recieving all the action. aggressive isn't necessarily picking "engage eight" on madden every play :D blitzing of course would be the obvious gauge but really i just want to see some "f*ck yourself mr. opposing offensive player" attitude. corners jamming and not just giving up 7 yards every play, receivers wary of treading the middle, some big hits. aggressive play. don't just sit back and take it for 7 yards everytime because offenses will take a 7 yard pass every down and all the way down.

EDIT: oh yea, whoever said kubiak's offense is vanilla needs help watching the games hahaha...

DOUBLE EDIT: i also wanted to throw in that i'm loving the type of player this regime has brought to defense though!!!

I guess vanilla was a bad word to use.

I meant that the off was watered down and not 100% implimented. Which is basically what we have seen from the Def. Sage said it in an interview not to long ago. He also said that they were opening up things that they hadnt been able to do in the past because the system is finally in and they arent in the learing curve at mini camps and OTA's.

Now I could be halucinating here on this point so feel free to correct me or support me... I think i remember from the first year talk from the coaches and players on def about the def system actually being very complex. They had tried to impliment it all at once and then pulled it all back to a very basic scheme because it was way too much for the players to digest in the short period of time and they ended up playing very basic again last year because of so many secondary players going down.

I also remember the House of Pain, and I have also railed against DC Richard Smith because he wasn't aggressive enough for my tastes. Yes he works under the Kubiak constraint of only rush 4 down linemen. I can understand the reasoning. We were woefully undermanned. Perhaps I was wrong. I am willing to go along with you PK, at least for this season. Smith now has the DL to guard against the run and to rush to passer. He also has a much better LBing corp. The one intangible is the secondary. Dunta being out will adversely affect the way the CB defend the pass. They will probably still give a 7 yard cushion. The safeties should be better, if for no other reason than that there is so many of them competing for only two spots. I would like to revisit this post just before the end of the season just to see how accurate many of us were.

Given their comments regarding the Reeves signing, that does not seem to be their intention.

Why do you say that? I remember their comments as being that they think he is better suited to the man scheme that we run....wouldn't that mean that they plan on doing the same thing we've been doing with Reeves that we have done with other corners?

....or am I missing something?

As I recall, they also made several comments about him playing better in bump and run rather than with a big cushion. There was also a comment by Bennett I believe about working on hand work for bump and run with Ray Rhodes.

I guess I missed that ....or it just didn't stick. Either way I think it is a good idea to mix it up a little and let the corners be a little more aggressive occasionally.

Thats what I remember from the post signing interviews also. It would mean no more Faggins and a 12 yard cushion and more press at the line and disturb routes.

7 yard cushion was necessary last year. does anybody really want petey doing bump and run coverage?

That's not necessarily going to be any worse. I wouldn't think he has the size to effectively "bump" some of today's big WR, but some guys are just better playing tighter press coverages. Some are better if they can sit in a zone and read everything.

I'm not saying that Petey is going to be better as bump and run corner. Only that it's not automatic that if a guy struggles with one technique that he will automatically struggle just as badly in another.

While I was writing that, I was hoping in my heart, they would not. If Reeves can play bump and run, mano a mano, maybe it will give us yet another dimension to be excited about.

For what it's worth, i hope Petey doesn't even make the final squad.

While I think Petey is a fairly solid nickel/dime guy, I would also like to see him go. That would mean we have upgraded the secondary a lot.

well, remember that it was mixed up with sherman's power running style so......it was really weird. but be fair to kubiak, he always mixed it up. he always gave defenses a few looks even if a few of them weren't his looks.

from what i understand about the d they line up the same way but call different plays to give an illusion of "vanilla" when really there is some double-chocolate cherry blast waiting somewhere. i realize last year was some sort of mega-nilla because of all the injuries and such but i just don't want to be anywhere close to last year's d.

especially with how well our d'line and lb corps have turned out. both depth charts are solid from top to bottom.

I would like to see more movement from our defense. They don't necessarily have to blitz 6 every third down. I would like to see some shifts before the snap to disguise pre-snap reads the QB might be looking for. The closest thing I can point to is that Mario would sometimes line up at RDE and LDE at other times. Perhaps I'm just to big of a fan of the Eagles' Jim Johnson and the Giants' Spagnoulo in terms of Zone Blitzing. There's something to be said for running a 4-3 with 3-4 principles.

The big concern is with our secondary. While the Eagles are loaded with talent, the Giants won a Super Bowl with average players on the back end.

I'm not so worried about the pre-snap shifts. It's just as effective if you line up the same way every time, but do different things out of it. If the QB sees the same look every time than there is nothing for him to read. Of course you have to time the snap if this is what your trying to do or else you give things away......and actually change up what you are doing once the play starts. If it's cover 2 with man coverage underneath mixed in with sending one LB 3 times a game, well the QB doesn't really have to make too many pre-snap reads and all the shifting and disguising in the world won't help. Keep'em guessing. I don't care how. Just do it.

i hated when they would make the LB's especially our boy in the middle crowd the lines and then drop back like 10 times a game. the fakey-stack only works if the opposing offenses are wary of the blitz. you have to blitz for them to be wary of the blitz. blitzing effectively is even better.

god....our defense must have been overwhelmed to the max last year. our little group here has had about 40 solid ideas to make the D better and we are just fans. surely a highly paid D Coordinator thought or tried the same things?

When you have a bunch younger guys on the field it is harder to do more than just line up and play. They tend to think more than play.

Same goes for when you have players comming into a new scheme or players that arent used to communicating and playing with each other.

We have had both in abundance the last two years. The first few games two years ago were horrible. 400 yard passing for a few teams. This was because Smith was trying to do more with the scheme, the inexperience of the players on the field and in the scheme killed it and they adjusted to more base def. We saw it again last year after losing starters and depth all around in the secondary.

I expect us to start pretty basic out of the gate this year again. If our secondary lines up Bennet, Demps, Brown, Reeves it may be a bit more than the basic def we saw all last year until the end of the season. By the time Drob gets back I hope that we see more and more of the def play book though.

Dont forget that in theory just by looking at the def you wont know what they are lining up to do, and watching it on TV probably wont give you a great view of their shifts post snap. At the game it will be easier to focus on the def and see exactly what they are running once the ball is snaped.

i'm not sure if you're pointing that last comment at me or not but just for the hell of it i'll say i have season tickets and go to the games. i see your points (and you make good ones about young and new players meshing together) but the point about not being able to tell what the defense is going is right in line with what i said. if you stack the line 20 times and blitz only once or twice that gives you a tell as to what the defense is doing: probably dropping back and trying to fake out the qb with the stack.

i expect a little more than the basic book out of the gate. i know they are still young and new players but see how many players are returning. bennett, demps, probably brown, demeco, greenwood, mario, amobi, tj, weaver, we'll meet up with dunta a little down the road and we added vets like colvin and reeves. the only truly "new" player getting a shot to start is zac diles. some guys might fit into roles but i'm just going to limit it to starters for now. i won't expect page 300 to surface or anything but i will expect to see a little more flare being called.

Does anyone else wonder if Ray Rhodes was brought in to be Richard Smith's successor if the defense does not show marked improvement this year?

I doubt it. Ray had gotten out of coaching for health reasons. I think he took this job because he had gotten bored, it was close to his hometown (Mexia), and it was a position that would let him work with the players but not be as grueling and time consuming as being a full time coordinator would be. I just don't think he would want it. If the defense is getting torched and Smith got fired mid-season I could see him taking over as the interim DC....but I don't thing it would be a permanent long term deal.

not really. i remember rhodes having a heart issue of some sort so he prefers the limitation of db coach instead of the pressure of handling it all. or something like that...

besides, it's not like frank bush a.k.a. kubiak's first choice isn't on the staff already. really, i understand the limitations of youth and injuries...but i believe richard smith's days are seriously numbered if this defense doesn't come out with an attitude. after 2 years (and however many games he gets this year) people need a head to roll to feel better about how lackluster our defense has been.

This tale you speak of, "going to other boards" is the problem. There are many idiots you should not associate with. This is the reason you should only come to this board for intelligent discussions.

When going to the other boards, it always makes me think of a line from a movie..."I feel like I'm sitting here playing cards with my brother's kids or something...nerve racking SOB's."

I talked to a guy from Dallas (still a fan) and lives in Denver. He knew football imo. He said Reeves plays similar to P-Bust. He has speed but can't cover for squat.

I didn't like hearing that one.

I had to go to the other boards because you where sitting at/on HPF waiting for the draft talk to start. :D

And I agree there are a lot of ...

Watch the one on one segment on houstontexans.com and it will also give an indication the defense will be playing a lot of bump and run.



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I, for one, am sure that Jacque Reeves will NOT play like P-Buc, for the simple reason that he was signed by Rick Smith, not Charlie Casserly!

I go to the other message boards in our division because I like to see how ludicrous their homerism can become. The two worst, of course, are 1. The Jags, and 2. the Titans. Both seem to have more than their fair share of post puberty teen agers.

I'm not sure why, but I have just have a feeling that will be true statement. Like you, I have a lot more faith in who did the choosing on this one.