How much longer.......

[papabear]

Originally Posted by cadams

for the record, i liked it when they put mario next to ryans. don't want to see it on a regular basis mind you, but i like the idea of throwing it in there every once in a while to keep the defense guessing.

I understand what he's trying to do, but I don't think that's something that we can just throw out there on a whim. If they are going to do something like that I would think it would need to be something they work on quite a bit throughout the week. That might come at the expense of tightening up our base package...whatever that is. That's probably my biggest complaint with Smith. It seems like he tries to take the Defense one way for a few weeks and then gives up on it and tries something else. I thought we would play a lot of man when he came here...then we started playing nothing but zone. He'll zone blitz and then he won't. Some of it is driven by match-ups, but it doesn't seem like he has a clear picture of what he wants to do with this team....that makes the other Smith's job that much harder too. Flexible is good, not having any idea what you are trying to do is bad.

[dadmg]

Personally, I'd be a bit reluctant to blitz too if I had safeties like ours. Then again, leave corners out there without a pass rush and the situation will eventually break down too. I wouldn't be at all surprised if we spent this entire draft, top-to-bottom, on D starting with another DE or S. It's frustrating because we have so many pieces in place but at the same time we have great big black holes in our lineup that suck the life out of the team.

[nero THE zero]

I know most everyone has probably picked their sides so far as this conversation goes. John McClain blamed the players on the field. TC blames Richard Smith. And, ultimately, it's probably a little of both.

But, FWIW, Lance Zierlein has said that his dad (OL coach in Pittsburgh) told him that our defense has a tendency to tip it plays, and that they often knew what plays were coming from the defense based on how they were lined up.

So, we might have some players that are horrible at blitzing (re: Morlon Greenwood,) but out DC isn't doing us any favors either.

[jppaul]

I get a little bit annoyed when I see Williams run the same D-line stunt 14 times in one game