I'm not sure what team you were watching. The defense:
* played well at Cleveland
* held Atlanta to 3 points
* had a good game at Carolina, holding them to 14 until Foster broke his run with under 2 minutes
* held up against Philly, who had scored 30 or more points in each of the 4 games prior to playing us (held them to 24).
Yes, they played poorly at Pitt, and fell apart in the 4th quarter vs Cincy, but in those 2 games, plus the Baltimore game, our offense gave those teams 10 more possessions due to turnovers. Consistently poor is simply not accurate.