lmfao +1

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Okay.. this talk of the defense not improving or improving over the season.. it isn't so.. at least in my opinion.

First our defense was very solid against the run.. that is overlooked greatly.

Second, our defense had trouble against experienced QB's that could handle diverse sets with stacked receivers and movement.. less experienced QB's and OC.. they call it more vanilla.. we struggled ever time against the aforementioned groups.. and it was an attack on our scheme, our strength and the opposition knew we had little options.

We play a majority of press and man coverages.. where movement, slants and stacks allowing the receivers to get off the line freely. and our downfall last season was Dom's reluctance to switch it up and play zone in the regular season.. and give this secondary some experience in it.

Thus when nothing else was working against Arizona, we tried to go to a zone / cover two coverage and we had guys lost, and not just the green players either. Don't believe me, go back and watch the regular season games and count the zone coverages.. they were few and far between..

So one has to believe, as smart as Dom has proven to be over his career, that we will be mixing in zone coverages in the regular season to give us that option when teams attack our bread and butter.. the man press scheme.

Why he didn't last season is lost upon me, other than maybe he wanted to ease in the blend or he thought we were good enough without it.. plus losing a very good press corner in Harris proved very costly.

Maybe this additional coverage responsibilities are the reason some of our young corners didn't flourish in the preseason.. as they are adjusting to the changes, some have never been taught to play zone.. that also might explain away some of the large cushions we gave players in the preseason.. teaching our corners to play off as well as the press.

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+1 for exploding bowels as well!

My question still pertains to how the D has improved since Pitt/AZ. Kampman/Harris weren't parts of the equation then either, and I also don't think we can assume re-inserting Harris, who is coming off an ACL at the backside of his career is "comfort food" at best.

Burnett is an upgrade, and I can see Raji making big strides in yr 2 at his natural position, but we still only have 6 DL, which includes oft-injured Harrell, and I'm :horse: but the cbs are still paper thin.

EDIT: just read 93's post, and it touched on a final point I was making. A lack of communcation certainly seemed to be our downfall in the AZ game, and 8 months can correct that...but the depth still scares me

Putting players in a position that provides the best chance to succeed is huge.. and like I mentioned above.. I have confidence that Dom will make the adjustments this offseason and the regular season to help close that gap by changing up the coverage schemes behind a, to this point, weak pass rush.

It give a huge advantage to the offense if they know you are going to play straight up man play in and out.. then allow their game plan to attack it.. putting their players in the best position to succeed.. that includes future HOF QB's.

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You guys keep pointing out that we got thrown all over by good QB's wouldn't you think in being the 1st year of the scheme there would be up and downs?It is not necessary Doms Fault for the bad performances by are defense when we played AZ/PIT/MIN.Players have as much to blame for it as do the coach's.Year 2 in the 3-4 scheme will have better communication plus better understanding of the plays given to them.I think we got good communicating S's Burnett has already picked up the defense and is a great communicator that is one of the reasons why I think we drafted him.

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They bought into it last season. They better not do so again this season. Personally, I think they will.

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+1 to OP because I had almost the exact same concerns last year at this time. There are two things that I think are key to this season.

1. We need to come out of the gates scoring on our first drive. Last year we started slow for too many games of the season. It seemed like Rodgers was looking for the deep pass too often and it hurt us. Contrast this with last year's preseason where were heralded for not punting once. I think getting the lead will help our defense significantly in keeping them off the field more often as well as helping them with confidence.

2. Minimize the injuries. This is a no-brainer since I think many of us already feel like our secondary is vulnerable with respect to depth and possibly talent.

On a side note, I am amazed at how the pack are getting props from everywhere. I a live in Raven's country and my local sports radio talk about the Pack beating the Ravens in the superbowl with Rodgers or Bulaga(!) as MVP. I think they talked about Bulaga because he has such a cool name.

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Not only did they buy into the preseason hype last year, but they went into the playoff game over confident after beating Arizona in a meaningless game in week 17. They didn't learn their lesson.

I think our defense was simply out played. Not sure if it was over confident because of the meaningless game that half the Cardinals starters didn't play in. I'll buy into the over confidence in the beginning of the year for shizzle, plus Aaron said they were, lol.

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Woodson said they were over confident going into the playoff game.