Defensive Coaching

Given our personnel, it's hard to imagine us playing much better defensively this year.

Certainly, there was a bad game (Steelers), but there have been some tremendous stretches (first half of the Eagles game; tremendous early work against the Packers that kept us in the game; first three quarters yesterday; all but 4 minutes of the second Bucs game; first three quarters of the Panthers game) where they've done a very good job of getting off the field and getting us the ball back in good field position.

We simply do not have the athletes to create a lot of turnovers or take a lot of chances. If we blitz too, too much, we are going to get killed out there. We probably could be better coached, but I'm not sure by how much, and I was one of the guys out there really scratching his head about the choice of DC last spring. It's always easy to say stuff like "the safeties aren't getting over" and "we should blitz more", but teams now have to work to run the ball on us and to attack our weak spots, as opposed to just coming out and running their offense like it's a skeleton drill. Overall, I'm pleased.

I agree with this. This defense is certainly not similiar to a Venturi led squad. Problem is, we don't have the talent (excluding an injured Harper) beyond the front four to dominate or even consistently control offenses. I don't think that it is a coaching problem at all, and if anything, our D is playing a bit better than I expected considering the talent.

Just some additional thoughts:

Safetys: Stoudmire is playing as expected, aggressive coming up against the run, but is not fleet of foot and does not excel in coverage. His aggressiveness against the run hurts him at time as he is not a perfect form tackler. Often comes in blind without wrapping up. I have been dissappointed with Bullocks as I have seen him miss several tackles in traffic near the LOS. In addition, he does not appear decisive in taking angles and anticipating routes and passes.

Corner play: Without question, I feel that Gibbs and Payton know that Freddy T is limited and would like to upgrade. Problem is, there is no one to immediately upgrade the position.

Linebackers: Aside from Fajita, this corp is limited. Although the backers are generally in the position to make plays, they just don't make enough of them (hard to blame coaching for this). I highly doubt that Simineau is part of Gibbs future plans as starting MIKE. However, he is the best that we have at the moment.

Schemes/Blitzing: As you indicated, considering our lack of cover skills, we could get burned badly if we blitz too much or at the wrong times.

Although some of my comments may fall into the "obvious" category, just emphazing that coaching ability/performance is the least of my worries. We will vastly improve as our talent level improves in the future.