#1 Defense By Smoke & Mirrors

[teegre]

Originally Posted by GoFor7

Another thing about this defense is that it's not aggressive enough. LeBeau thinks that eventually a team will make a mistake and a turnover will come. Wrong. Defenses have to make turnovers happen. Undercut a route and pick off a pass. When you sit in a 10 yard cushion and "tackle the catch," turnovers won't happen.

I disagree... to a degree.

AGREE: I think that the defense gets no pressure...

DISAGREE: ...because, they simply do not have the players to do so. When Timmons is sent at the QB, he gets there & gets the sack. When Harrison is sent, he gets there, gets the sack, and often gets the strip.

But, when they send Foote, he gets there... and misses the QB. Similarly, when Hood & Keisel get there, they miss the QB. And, Woodley... well... Woodley is hurt every other play.

Dion Jordan solves a lot of this defense's issues.

AGREE: I think that the defense gets no pressure...

DISAGREE: ...because, due to having the 4th & 5th string CBs and the 3rd string FS playing CB, the team was dropping Harrison into coverage on (my estimate) about 75% of the plays.

DISAGREE: I like the 10 yard cushion defense... as long as Harrison is rushing the passer. If he is not rushing the passer, then no one else is going to "make a splash play." It's that simple. If you make a QB go ten plays down the field, Harrison WILL get to the QB on one of those plays: sack, or even a force fumble.

That type of defense does indeed work... if the OLBs get to the QB.

If there is no OLB pressure, then that defense can be picked apart.

[FanSince72]

Originally Posted by GoFor7

I don't think all of the defense's issues are on Dick LeBeau, but maybe it's time for a change. Over the last two seasons this defense has just gotten stale. It looks good stat-wise, but it doesn't get pressure on the QB and doesn't generate turnovers at the rate it used to. I also can't stand the fact that this defense is considered "too complex" for rookies or even second year players? If you need a PhD to play football, something is wrong. There are rookies on other teams that come into the league and make an impact with defenses that are probably much less complex.

Why is it that when the defense sucks it ISN'T about LeBeau but when the offense sucked in the past it was ALWAYS about Arians?

You can't have it both ways. If the OC is going to get reamed for a bad offense, the the DC has to assume the position when HIS squad mails it in.

Funny thing is that I can't think of one particular year under Arians when our offense seemed as rudderless as this year's offense and all I've heard for years is how he sucked and blah, blah, blah. Yet he's 9-5 with a team full of rookies and we're 7-7 with a stable of pro-bowlers and the guy who was supposed to be our savior because he WASN'T Arians..

Gee, I wonder if getting rid of BA was such a great idea after all...

Nah! Haley's MUCH better.

[GoFor7]

Originally Posted by FanSince72

Why is it that when the defense sucks it ISN'T about LeBeau but when the offense sucked in the past it was ALWAYS about Arians?

You can't have it both ways. If the OC is going to get reamed for a bad offense, the the DC has to assume the position when HIS squad mails it in.

Funny thing is that I can't think of one particular year under Arians when our offense seemed as rudderless as this year's offense and all I've heard for years is how he sucked and blah, blah, blah. Yet he's 9-5 with a team full of rookies and we're 7-7 with a stable of pro-bowlers and the guy who was supposed to be our savior because he WASN'T Arians..

Gee, I wonder if getting rid of BA was such a great idea after all...

Nah! Haley's MUCH better.

I don't think LeBeau is to blame for the fact the front office has kept some guys too long. Much like I don't think Arians is to blame because the front office failed to get quality offensive linemen. I do blame him for all of those fourth-quarter let downs that have happened since the second half of Super Bowl 43 as the defense kept making the same mistakes. It was only up until this year he figured out how to do things without Polamalu.

[jiminpa]

Originally Posted by FanSince72

Why is it that when the defense sucks it ISN'T about LeBeau but when the offense sucked in the past it was ALWAYS about Arians?

You can't have it both ways. If the OC is going to get reamed for a bad offense, the the DC has to assume the position when HIS squad mails it in.

Funny thing is that I can't think of one particular year under Arians when our offense seemed as rudderless as this year's offense and all I've heard for years is how he sucked and blah, blah, blah. Yet he's 9-5 with a team full of rookies and we're 7-7 with a stable of pro-bowlers and the guy who was supposed to be our savior because he WASN'T Arians..

Gee, I wonder if getting rid of BA was such a great idea after all...

Nah! Haley's MUCH better.

You can watch the game and see that Arians sucked no matter who was in the game, and you can see that LeBeau can field a defense that holds in own with half of it made up of guys who had to get their first NFL game uniform two weeks ago, (and one or two of them traded in their Burger King uniforms for them). So this defense made up of of guys who were game-time decisions and recent burger flippers isn't pushing offenses out of scoring position when the offense turns the ball over anymore, that doesn't make the scheme bad. Like I said, try watching the game, not applying cookie cutter reasoning. Arians was the weakest link. The corner backs who weren't even playing in the NFL three weeks ago are the weakest links. See the difference? And you probably never will, but that doesn't make the rest of us wrong.

[lipps83]

Originally Posted by GoFor7

I don't think LeBeau is to blame for the fact the front office has kept some guys too long. Much like I don't think Arians is to blame because the front office failed to get quality offensive linemen. I do blame him for all of those fourth-quarter let downs that have happened since the second half of Super Bowl 43 as the defense kept making the same mistakes. It was only up until this year he figured out how to do things without Polamalu.

Dick Lebeau has been blowing some pretty important 4th quarter leads since Montana led the 49'ers back against the Bengals in the Super Bowl in 1988.

Yeah, this defense is #1.

In jokes.

[lipps83]

Originally Posted by jiminpa

You can watch the game and see that Arians sucked no matter who was in the game, and you can see that LeBeau can field a defense that holds in own with half of it made up of guys who had to get their first NFL game uniform two weeks ago, (and one or two of them traded in their Burger King uniforms for them). So this defense made up of of guys who were game-time decisions and recent burger flippers isn't pushing offenses out of scoring position when the offense turns the ball over anymore, that doesn't make the scheme bad. Like I said, try watching the game, not applying cookie cutter reasoning. Arians was the weakest link. The corner backs who weren't even playing in the NFL three weeks ago are the weakest links. See the difference? And you probably never will, but that doesn't make the rest of us wrong.

Then what are your excuses when the secondary was healthy minus one person against the Raiders and Titans, heck, the full first 6 or 7 weeks of football? Troy being back and the defense has been worse. I wonder if you were one of the people on this board calling for Ike Taylor to be cut from the team, now wanting to use his absence the last two weeks as an excuse for pitiful defensive play.

This defense used to dictate games. Now they can only stop an offense on 3rd down when the offense has the pass fall incomplete. We used to blow teams up not just on 3rd down, but on every down. Now instead of dictating what is going to happen we drop everyone into coverage and hope that the pass is incomplete to force the offense to punt.

This defense is a joke and has been all year minus some good games against the Jets, Chiefs, Browns, Ravens. All offenses that are complete garbage.

Go ahead and be proud that they are number 1 in total yards allowed. I will stick to reality and watch the defense fall apart every week late in the game.

[jiminpa]

Originally Posted by lipps83

Dick Lebeau has been blowing some pretty important 4th quarter leads since Montana led the 49'ers back against the Bengals in the Super Bowl in 1988.

Yeah, this defense is #1.

In jokes.

And the offense turning over the ball in its own endzone has nothing to do with that? Some of you closet browns fans have been crying about the defense giving up almost as many points as the offense for years. I call BS. Even with guys who wouldn't have seen an NFL field if there hadn't been so many injuries this year this defense is still affective. In the games in recent years that the offense literally gave up more points than the defense you Arians fans would be crying because the defense would give up 10 of the 13 points it allowed in the second half, calling the fact that the defense allowed less than two touchdowns the whole game irrelevant, because the majority came in the fourth quarter, and then you would blame the defense for points the offense gave the other team. Now you can barely hide your excitement that the defense isn't superhuman any more. Even with guys off of the street playing corner it is still a top 5 defense. It's not the defense.

[Kanata-Steeler]

I think now this is just a: "#1 DeadThread by Smoke and Mirrors"
EDIT: Unless of course, you haven't seen our illustrious Offense playing lately ?

[steelbelieve]

Originally Posted by steve314

Also an easy schedule. Only one game all year against a top 8 QB.

Ranked 19th if you adjust for strength of schedule.
http://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/teamdef

No. You better look again. They're ranked 11th both this week and last according to their proprietary criteria.

[FanSince72]

Originally Posted by jiminpa

You can watch the game and see that Arians sucked no matter who was in the game, and you can see that LeBeau can field a defense that holds in own with half of it made up of guys who had to get their first NFL game uniform two weeks ago, (and one or two of them traded in their Burger King uniforms for them). So this defense made up of of guys who were game-time decisions and recent burger flippers isn't pushing offenses out of scoring position when the offense turns the ball over anymore, that doesn't make the scheme bad. Like I said, try watching the game, not applying cookie cutter reasoning. Arians was the weakest link. The corner backs who weren't even playing in the NFL three weeks ago are the weakest links. See the difference? And you probably never will, but that doesn't make the rest of us wrong.

And once again I will point out:

• 5 winning seasons under Arians
• Four of those seasons were double-digit wins
• Three of those seasons were 12 wins
• We went to 2 Super Bowls
• We won 1 Super Bowl

And now Arians is 9-5 with a new team, serving as both the OC and as the Head Coach and has a roster of young players and a rookie QB.

No coach who "sucks" racks up a resume like that.