Marcus Williams. Starting to get old. (1 Viewer)

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Dennis Allen rightfully deserves the vitriol he gets for maybe not scheming to players' strengths, but for some reason Aaron Glenn tends to get a free pass. I don't see his name brought up that much in regards to the piss poor technique and bad fundamentals on display with some of these guys.
 
Williams’ deep pass support is so bad it’s virtually nonexistent. On nearly every big by the opposition this year - Lattimore is in man coverage, he gets beat off the LOS (Lattimore has never regained the speed/burst he had as a rookie after gaining “muscle”), Lattimore is clearly struggling to keep up with the WR, and instead of Williams sprinting full speed to support he instead kind of just lazily jogs toward Lattimore side. He’s there to attempt the tackle but by then the damage is done.

Williams AND Lattimore have both been very disappointing so far. Apple is what he is - a very marginal, flag magnet starter, PJ Williams is boom or bust, Patrick Robinson looks like the guy he was before he signed with the Eagles. What a mess.....
 
It is either Aaron Glenn or Dennis Allen, or both.

The Saints Defensive Line is extremely deep, players improving by huge amounts every season. No question Ryan Nielsen is killing it as the DL coach. Rankins, Onyemata, Hendrickson, and Davenport are all trending upwards in a big way, and they're all home grown drafted players. Cam Jordan's game is just on another level completely since Nielsen showed up.

Mike Nolan only has one home grown player to work with, Alex Anzalone, and the only hole in his game is staying healthy. He improves by leaps every season. Davis, Klein, and Robertson have all also thrived with Nolan at the helm of the Linebackers.

The Secondary is stagnating and regressing. Aaron Glenn is the Secondary Coach. Dennis Allen is the Defensive Coordinator, but his specialty is the Secondary. Ken Crawley was a very highly rated corner in 2017 and looked like the perfect compliment to Lattimore. Ken Crawley is now a healthy inactive. Marshon Lattimore had a rookie season that made you think Revis 2.0. He hasn't come close to that since then. I believe Vonn Bell only missed two tackles his entire rookie season? Now it's no surprise to see him whiff completely. Marcus Williams had an incredible rookie season, but he's been lost every since. Patrick Robinson has been a disaster here. PJ Williams is barely surviving in the slot, and is horrible on the boundary. Eli Apple looks worse this season than he did last season. I understand you can't hit on every draft pick and free agent signing, but the "failure" rate right now among the secondary is alarming. Something's gotta give. No way can the Saints hit on nearly every defensive lineman and linebacker they draft/sign in free agency while the secondary is just miss after miss after miss. This screams coaching to me.
 
BreesusSaves said:
It is either Aaron Glenn or Dennis Allen, or both.

The Saints Defensive Line is extremely deep, players improving by huge amounts every season. No question Ryan Nielsen is killing it as the DL coach. Rankins, Onyemata, Hendrickson, and Davenport are all trending upwards in a big way, and they're all home grown drafted players. Cam Jordan's game is just on another level completely since Nielsen showed up.

Mike Nolan only has one home grown player to work with, Alex Anzalone, and the only hole in his game is staying healthy. He improves by leaps every season. Davis, Klein, and Robertson have all also thrived with Nolan at the helm of the Linebackers.

The Secondary is stagnating and regressing. Aaron Glenn is the Secondary Coach. Dennis Allen is the Defensive Coordinator, but his specialty is the Secondary. Ken Crawley was a very highly rated corner in 2017 and looked like the perfect compliment to Lattimore. Ken Crawley is now a healthy inactive. Marshon Lattimore had a rookie season that made you think Revis 2.0. He hasn't come close to that since then. I believe Vonn Bell only missed two tackles his entire rookie season? Now it's no surprise to see him whiff completely. Marcus Williams had an incredible rookie season, but he's been lost every since. Patrick Robinson has been a disaster here. PJ Williams is barely surviving in the slot, and is horrible on the boundary. Eli Apple looks worse this season than he did last season. I understand you can't hit on every draft pick and free agent signing, but the "failure" rate right now among the secondary is alarming. Something's gotta give. No way can the Saints hit on nearly every defensive lineman and linebacker they draft/sign in free agency while the secondary is just miss after miss after miss. This screams coaching to me.
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Here's how I think we see the crossroads of this season.

It's this week in Seattle.

If Russell Wilson shreds the Saints secondary the way he did the Steelers, then forget it. We have problems apart from Drew and even with Drew likely were not going to make it through to the Super Bowl getting shredded on the back end.

The hopeful note is there is still time for Allen to "go back to the drawing board" and scrap whatever he is doing and scheme something the players are more suited too. That has been the case 2 seasons in a row as we were getting worked and by week 3-4 Allen had to re-assess. So that could still get somewhat fixed.

The un-hopeful note is that we have to see this dance every season starting off with the secondary struggling and giving up chunks.
 
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blackadder said:
Here's how I think we see the crossroads of this season.

It's this week in Seattle.

If Russel Wilson shreds the Saints secondary the way he did the Steelers, then forget it. We have problems apart from Drew and even with Drew likely were not going to make it through to the Super Bowl getting shredded on the back end.

The hopeful note is there is still time for Allen to "go back to the drawing board" and scrap whatever he is doing and scheme something the players are more suited too. That has been the case 2 seasons in a row as we were getting worked and by week 3-4 Allen had to re-assess. So that could still get somewhat fixed.

The un-hopeful note is that we have to see this dance every season starting off with the secondary struggling and giving up chunks.
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The big question is why we have to reassess every year in mid-season.
 
BreesusSaves said:
It is either Aaron Glenn or Dennis Allen, or both.

The Saints Defensive Line is extremely deep, players improving by huge amounts every season. No question Ryan Nielsen is killing it as the DL coach. Rankins, Onyemata, Hendrickson, and Davenport are all trending upwards in a big way, and they're all home grown drafted players. Cam Jordan's game is just on another level completely since Nielsen showed up.

Mike Nolan only has one home grown player to work with, Alex Anzalone, and the only hole in his game is staying healthy. He improves by leaps every season. Davis, Klein, and Robertson have all also thrived with Nolan at the helm of the Linebackers.

The Secondary is stagnating and regressing. Aaron Glenn is the Secondary Coach. Dennis Allen is the Defensive Coordinator, but his specialty is the Secondary. Ken Crawley was a very highly rated corner in 2017 and looked like the perfect compliment to Lattimore. Ken Crawley is now a healthy inactive. Marshon Lattimore had a rookie season that made you think Revis 2.0. He hasn't come close to that since then. I believe Vonn Bell only missed two tackles his entire rookie season? Now it's no surprise to see him whiff completely. Marcus Williams had an incredible rookie season, but he's been lost every since. Patrick Robinson has been a disaster here. PJ Williams is barely surviving in the slot, and is horrible on the boundary. Eli Apple looks worse this season than he did last season. I understand you can't hit on every draft pick and free agent signing, but the "failure" rate right now among the secondary is alarming. Something's gotta give. No way can the Saints hit on nearly every defensive lineman and linebacker they draft/sign in free agency while the secondary is just miss after miss after miss. This screams coaching to me.
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Agree. All the evidence points to coaching/scheme. For example, we've seen Lattimore play at a high level. P-Rob looked great with the Eagles. Apple and PJ look pretty good late last year. Williams had a great rookie season and Bell was starting to look really good. Crawley looked good a few years back. Now, all of a sudden, the whole secondary looks like a bunch of UDFA rookies out there. Lost, toasted, and forgetting how to tackle. What gives?
 
There also seems to be a hole in our zone defense on the left side of the field (from the prospective of the defense). I dont know if this is on him as well but the area in question would seem to indicate a safety or possibility a LB.
 
It's a failure of coaching and the player.

Unless we turn into the 85 Bears for the rest of the season, I'm done with Dennis Allen and I'm done with Marcus Williams as the starting FS. We keep bringing in retreads at DC and it got old about half a decade ago. For once, could we just hire a young, sought after position coach from a highly successful scheme?
 
The premise of this thread is valid, yet... I will say, more than most positions on Defense, when Marcus has a bad play/day... it's very visible because of where he plays and the deep areas he is responsible for... so when he messes up / has a bad play... it's magnified by the fact that it's like 30 yards or more downfield.

From what I have seen with Marcus... He's made some bad choices in coverage, and has shown some indecision (or late recognition) that has cost us some big plays and has left our CBs out to dry (and it's not just this year, it was last year too). His tackling, has never been great, but that was never a strong suit for him. His strong suit has been his ability to cover ground with the ball in the air, and high point passes away from would be WRs...

You still see times when he does that... yet... you also see times when he jumps the underneath crosser, and leaves his wide side outside CB one on one with the best WR in the NFL on a go route...

It's maddening, and you have to ask... Is he doing this type of thing because of the single high man defense he's playing dictates he does this? Or is he freelancing and losing a gamble?

It's probably a bit of both, but clearly we are playing an aggressive scheme ... and Marcus has been feast or famine in it... and it's super visible / consequential in either outcome.
 
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Mississippi Saints Fan said:
Something's just not right with our secondary, and I'm starting to lean toward scheme. I am not that knowledgeable on defensive schemes. All I know is we have two 1st round corners out there. We should not be getting torched on chunk plays so often. Marcus Williams seems to always be out of position and arriving when it's too late. Something has to give. The tackling look atrocious yesterday, not just with Williams, but the entire defense.
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Let us not forget that our DC’s “speciality” is the secondary
 
RJ in Lafayette said:
He is talented. As a rookie, he looked like a future foundation player. But he regressed last year, and he too often appears to be late with deep coverage. And his strength is supposed to be his instincts and ball skills.

He has never been the same player since the missed tackle at the end of the Minnesota game.
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I guess he was "coached up".

Remember that safety from U TX - played lights out his first year. (Often heard post game he was "out of position" when he made a Big Play. He shut down Tony Gonzalez on a potential Game Winning catch in the Endzone.)

The next few years, he was not so hot.

I always felt it was a case of being "coached up".
 

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