The Case Against Benching Marcus Williams (1 Viewer)

I think it’s been a decade of well below average free safety play at this point. I don’t get it. I keep thinking we have good players there like Byrd and Williams, but for whatever reason they get exploited it seems.

When Teddy made that Houdini escape on 3rd and real long, then delivered a strike just as he was getting drilled to the receive diving across the middle, I backed it up several times and couldn’t help but wonder why 43 wasn’t there to cut that off.
 
There’s no “case against benching Marcus Williams”. It absolutely needs to happen!

Williams is awful... he appears to have lost all of his confidence, and he’s a big play waiting to happen for opposing offenses.

The Saints should explore trade options to address the FS position... Justin Simmons, Marcus Maye, Anthony Harris, Justin Reid, Jessie Bates III, even Troy Apke would be an upgrade...

If they can’t find a deal to get a new FS in there, then give the job to DJ Swearinger! Swearinger is a veteran and plays with passion and fire. He’s not the athlete that MW is, but he’s a much better tackler, and he seriously can’t be any worse! Heck, I’d even get on board with starting CJGJ at FS and putting PJ Williams back in the slot or P-Rob.
 
It's a 2 deep safety with each guy taking half the field. The receiver came from his side of the field. Williams reacted to another receiver that was actually being covered.

He has no ability to make good decisions. None.

He's slow.

He can't tackle.

He has a low football IQ.

You have the makings of a terrible free safety.

On this we agree. People are calling out the scheme on that play, which is BS. Williams just makes a fundamentally stupid decision that every kid coming out of high school knows not to do at free safety. The corner had outside leverage and inside help already, what are you doing!!?!?!?
 
If that was his busted coverage today I believe it is the first egregious one I remember this year. It certainly looked bad but I can't say I'm 100% sure Jenkins wasn't supposed to roll to the top and he was supposed to crash down. You can't bash PFF grading and at the same time assume you know what the coverage responsibility is. I think it was on him but I'd like to know for sure before I'd start making benching accusations.

As a layman of pass coverages, I can only say he is not making plays on the ball at the same clip. He's been a step behind when on the screen. So I think he needs to play better but I don't think he's responsible for all the busted coverages. I'd hazard a guess most of those have happened away from his side. I think he is our rangiest deep safety and has ball skills. I do wonder if he's lost some range trying to bulk up. I don't think we have a better deep safety skillset on the roster regardless. Every one of our safeties has screwed up but he is the most likely to be able to recover.

Finally, and this is very important, how is he playing when the ball isn't thrown at his responsibility. I wouldn't say he's been abused by QB going after him repeatedly. Is that because he is doing his job at times or he is just one of many bads out there and it's random chance. I can't answer that question. I'd need several unbiased opinions to break down all his snaps.

Unfortunately, that kind of information isn't readily available. So as long as the Saints keep giving him 100% snaps I'm going to assume he is our best option. From the limited information I have it has been bad this year but it's the best bad we got. I'd look elsewhere for the root problem.
Williams is nothing more than "a warm body" at this point.
 
If we are tired of watching it I’m guessing a few players would be tired of playing in it.

My football days were as simple as the Free Safety always played safety with deep responsibility. “Never let anyone get behind you”.

In Allen’s scheme we can never be quite sure who was supposed to be doing what, And apparently the players can’t be sure either. But seems there are a lot of looks where the safety isn’t actually playing safety.

What's reeeaaaalllly bad about MW is that when he is in a position to make a play, he fails - esp the Tackling Part!

smh
 
The only reason you fire DA is because he's allowing 43 to trot out on the field every Sunday and get abused game after game.

DA's late game play calling is the reason we're 4-2 instead of 2-4. This was his main criticism in the past and now the Defense is making plays.

He's been known, since he arrived here, as being an astute in-game adjustments coach. He's aggressive like Gregg Williams without all the undisciplined crap.

All you clowns wanting to run off the best D coordinator we've had in the last 30 years are misguided. We have two safeties starting who don't know how to play and/or communicate.

Ones washed up and the other is a never was. Fix that and we're top 10 again.

Edit:. And to answer the OP's question, there isn't one and there hasn't been one this year (or last year really). I can't believe we let Vonn Bell walk and kept Latetotheball Whiffy McWhifferson.
I always defended DA as probably the best defensive coordinator we had in decades.

But its completely unbelievable this year that from our D-Line to our secondary everyone has problems with tackling, guarding receivers, stopping heavy runners.
yes there are some nice plays from time to time. but they have a hard time getting off the field and they look so undisciplined that I assume it has to be coaching.
Maybe its the staff under DA that doesnt do their job to coach single positions.

But Id say we got some pretty good talent across the board, which doesnt seem to work at all.

Maybe put in some more tackling reps? And some more training to close in on sacks?

Something has to happen, soon! or we wont even reach the playoffs. We got some tough games ahead
 
I really think we need to put yesterdays game is its own category. TB had practiced against the Saints D literally hundreds of times and watch DB practice against them also hundreds of times. TB is also an above average professional NFL quarterback.

No shade on TB and his performance but he went in with an extremely large advantage.
 
I always defended DA as probably the best defensive coordinator we had in decades.

But its completely unbelievable this year that from our D-Line to our secondary everyone has problems with tackling, guarding receivers, stopping heavy runners.
yes there are some nice plays from time to time. but they have a hard time getting off the field and they look so undisciplined that I assume it has to be coaching.
Maybe its the staff under DA that doesnt do their job to coach single positions.

But Id say we got some pretty good talent across the board, which doesnt seem to work at all.

Maybe put in some more tackling reps? And some more training to close in on sacks?

Something has to happen, soon! or we wont even reach the playoffs. We got some tough games ahead

Which is more plausible:
1. DA and crew suddenly stopped coaching
2. COVID protocol crap has taken a chainsaw to this season and defenses across the NFL are suffering.
 
I always defended DA as probably the best defensive coordinator we had in decades.

But its completely unbelievable this year that from our D-Line to our secondary everyone has problems with tackling, guarding receivers, stopping heavy runners.
yes there are some nice plays from time to time. but they have a hard time getting off the field and they look so undisciplined that I assume it has to be coaching.
Maybe its the staff under DA that doesnt do their job to coach single positions.

But Id say we got some pretty good talent across the board, which doesnt seem to work at all.

Maybe put in some more tackling reps? And some more training to close in on sacks?

Something has to happen, soon! or we wont even reach the playoffs. We got some tough games ahead

I haven't noticed we're struggling on run defense. I think tackling is not as strong as it has been but we're by no means bad.

I think there's some expectation management that needs to be had here. With limited practice and no preseason, schemes are taking longer to learn and we have had less time for coaching in general. These dudes are trying to avoid COVID so I'm sure they're limiting contact when they can.

The problems we're having on defense is primarily coming from our vested veterans. What does that tell you? Our coaches suddenly stopped knowing how to coach? I don't think so.

Watching players like Malcolm Jenkins make the same mistake week after week (not keeping contain on pass rush for example) should fall on the player, because there's zero chance that wasn't covered during the week by coaches.
 
Can you help explain what you mean by this? Us fans and league analysts rave about Payton's complex offense and it's barrage of substitutions and packages used to create mismatches and confusion.. Yet DA is constantly criticized here for a "complex" defensive scheme. If the offense can grasp a complex offense, why don't we have an expectation that the defensive players do the same?

Also to get us the win DA came up with a scheme where 92 was left solo on a hapless running back who had no chance to block him, that was a bit of brilliance there.

As far as the busted coverage play....I didn't see some complex scheme. Williams just makes a bad decision. The corner has outside leverage on the receiver and inside help already, Williams just makes another stupid mental mistake.

The coverage scheme is complicated in order to confuse the QB. However it really just confuses our guys. I constantly see these guys screaming at eachother to get into position before the play and then 4 guys cover one spot and leave a crossing WR or deep route wide open. Some plays he has a Saftey lineup deep and then he goes to cover the RB and a Slot corner who was on the LOS now becomes the deep safety. But if the offense motioned at the snap now everyone's job changes, but they aren't all on the same page of who has what now. This is what is happening to our DBs. They don't know who to cover and it isnt that they are lazy or stupid or whatever else. It is that the scheme needs to be simpler.

The best defense of the previous decade, the Seahawks, played one coverage about 90% of the time and they were unstoppable. It sounds trivial, but this is the biggest issue for us right now.
 
The best defense of the previous decade, the Seahawks, played one coverage about 90% of the time and they were unstoppable. It sounds trivial, but this is the biggest issue for us right now.


You say that as if this team has anything closed to the talent that Seahawks team had on defense.

I have to believe DA is doing the best with what he's been given. And honestly how can you blame him for such simple stuff as lining up to cover guys? There's no way that's on coaching, I don't see how you can blame the "scheme" for guys confused about who they are supposed to be covering. I hate to quote the man, but it's this simple: DO YOUR JOB. Do the guys not know what their job is?
 
I looked at that play a few times. They ran the same one in the 2nd half and Lattimore and Jenkins had the deep post responsibility, so I can only assume that is who was supposed to cover on this play. Turns out neither of them did and busted coverage.

I don't blame Latt, Jenk, or MW for that play. That is just really bad coverage design by a guy in DA who makes his scheme entirely too complicated for anyone to confidently play in. If we play simple coverages you will see these DBs start playing a lot better.

Just stop !! It was MW they admitted it was cover two and he guessed wrong like always. Let’s stop making excuses for him.
 
What's reeeaaaalllly bad about MW is that when he is in a position to make a play, he fails - esp the Tackling Part!

smh
Exactly.. he's often out of position, whiffs on tackles repeatedly and also, as a bonus, has awful ball skills.

Don't know what anyone sees in this guy.
 
It's a 2 deep safety with each guy taking half the field. The receiver came from his side of the field. Williams reacted to another receiver that was actually being covered.

He has no ability to make good decisions. None.

He's slow.

He can't tackle.

He has a low football IQ.

You have the makings of a terrible free safety.

Not here to defend MW. His effort has been terrible this year.

But this play is on DA. It looks like cover two. You and I agree on that. It should be cover 2. Again, we agree. 31 other teams would play this as cover 2.

Not DA. All season he has had MW jump the out route and send the corner deep on the post. He tries to be cute and trick the QB into a pick. It never works. It didn't work here. To be fair, they did it right in the 2nd half but it took an All Pro play from Lattimore to stop the TD.

It shouldn't be this hard. We should have just been in a simple cover 2. We agree.
 

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