Our defense is pathetic.
Fire Pettine today!!

Our defense is in fact horrendous. I don’t think it’s Pettine’s fault though. I think it’s personnel. We had 2 rookies playing ILB. A 5th rounder and an undrafted guy. They are showing flashes that gets me excited but they’re still rookies. Also, our defensive linemen, including Lowry, sucks except for Clark. We will not do well against teams with a stud RB.

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The starting ILB is injured (something he's had to deal with all year, yet we signed him anyway).

The coaching staff's job is to develop the talent, regardless if they were drafted high, drafted low, not drafted or signed from another team.

The coaching staff's job is to scheme the players into winnable positions.

When the offense is rolling, the defense just plays not to lose and that's about the only thing they can do consistently. They don't seem to tackle with efficiency. They don't seem to pressure the QB when they want/need to. They don't get turnovers. The only thing this defense rests its laurels on is the offense outpacing the opponent.

Using higher draft picks on players isn't the answer. Bringing on more talent and developing the talent is what we need.

Today, I am sad as this showed we have no home field advantage at all.

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Not taking anything away from Martin or Barnes because they look promising, but typically bringing on more talent would involve using higher draft picks. I think the issue is more so at defensive line than linebacker though. Clark is good, everyone else is average at best.

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I like Jaire Alexander, Darnell Savage (based on potential), Adrian Amos, Zadarius Smith, Kenny Clark and I think Rashan Gary is gonna turn into something good. Aside from that, I'm not sure anyone scratches above the "average" mark in my eyes. Preston Smith seems to be good when someone else is dominating the OL attention. Kevin King can be serviceable when healthy and playing someone who isn't shifty.

Whoever is responsible for discipline in gap control, playing soft coverage and not enforcing form tackling ... that is who I am blaming. This is the NFL. Your job is literally to play football. If the players we have are not coachable, then find new players.

Oh, I wish we had a bruiser, a thumper, a fighter, someone like Wayne Simmons or Desmond Bishop. I just don't see that type of mentality on any of the players we have. They seem more into doing a celebration dance than stomping on the opponents face.

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I split theses posts into it's own topic because -- it deserves long discussion.
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Amos gets it, not let's all do it.

"Adrian Amos on how to break the "formula" of opposing teams' success running the ball: "Start tackling the man with the ball.""



This is newsworthy.

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Hey oath Matt......THANK YOU captain obvious!!!!

Our defense is non existent. They can’t tackle. Runners go right through our guys like there’s no one there.
We’ve seen that if our offense doesn’t score every time, we lose.

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Can't tell if Matt's comment was to the defense, or the whole team. If whole team, then that might not be directed at Pettine nessarily.

But yeah, I can tell you what a team will try to do, go heavy in an attempted to get the Packers in their heavy defense, 3-4 D and run right at it, because the 3-4 DEs and sometimes the 3-4 OLB suck at run defense.

Now, most offensive coordinators, can't stay away from the passing game enough... but you better bet that Kubiak and Shanahan will run it all day... so this week is a rough one for the Packers defense. Packers are set up to get after the passing game...need more investment in DTs to stop the run better.

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I am sick and tired of the excuses and failures on defense. We are not getting it done.

It is like watching a horror movie. There is a pleasant start, but somewhere into the plot you know that the characters are going to get slashed to pieces.

Three major problems
[list=1]

We lack physicality and measured aggression

Our schemes are typically too passive

We make do not develop players [/list]Among other things, these shortcomings manifest themselves as follows:

The front sevenIt doesn’t matter if you have a 4-3, 3-4 or anything else. There is edge responsibility and inside of that, gap responsibility. (Almost no defensive scheme today play a 2 gap system…regrettably) When individuals get pushed out of their gaps the defense gets gashed by the run.

Too often, our guys get annihilated, destroyed, and blown so far out their gaps that there are giant holes in the defense that the poor guy next to the guy getting destroyed has an enormous chasm to try and fill. And when they are merely decimated (v destroyed) and pushed 3 yard off the line, our ILBs cannot get to their gaps.

WE NEED TO TEACH THESE GUYS, ESPECIALLY THOSE WITH THE PHYSICAL TALENT LIKE ADAMS AND KEKE TO CONTROL THE DOUBLE TEAMS. I just don’t know that Lowry and Lancaster have the physical ability to do it. They were destroyed last year in both SF games. And by the way, in the second half Clark took his share of ass-whipping.

Regrettably, against physically strong OLines, we get destroyed, i.e. SF, SD, etc., we have gotten get manhandled. Unless they are really banged up, we will likely get manhandled again Thursday

The Smiths, especially P Smith to a very good job setting the edge. It is what is happen between them that sucks. I actually feel sorry for them.

Clearly we have some talent shortcomings at ILB

Watching the Bears and Saints right now and both defensive lines do not get destroyed by double teams. They generally hold their ground and keep gap control. I am jealous.

IMO, we have enough talent to get it done…but we are not. Regardless, if we can’t match up then the staff need to put in stunts and slants and change it up.

The Secondary
We have an expensive free agent, 3 first round draft choices starting today, and we did not cover any better than the Vikings with a terribly banged up secondary. IT IS NOT THE TALENT. We consistently play 7-10 yards off the ball, even on 3rd and short yardage. To wit, on the nice tackle by Amos, towards the end of the game, Jackson was 12 yards off the line in a must stop situation. Had the QB kept the ball and flipped it to Theilen, he would have be 20 yards away. Today, in a windy stadium we did not press and force over the top throws. By the way when you press, your corners can help more quickly in the run game.

Too often our coverage schemes are soft and passive. Don’t tell me we can’t play man with safety over, that's non-sense. We can occasionally go man or man-over and blitz. The net is that we have emasculated our DB's with our passive game planning and scheming.

There are fewer blown coverages than the Capers era, but the overall product is still woefully inadequate.

The Vikings were down to their 6-7 DBs and they had at least as good coverage as we did.

Summary
Moreover, we need a new approach. THE DEFINITION OF INSANITY IS DOING THE SAME THING OVER AND OVER AND EXPECT TO GET A DIFFERENT RESULT. I was big Pettine fan, but ever since he moved to the sideline the defense has gotten worse. IMO he can’t see real-time what the hell is going on out there. He needs to mix it up more....or we need to make a change.

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All defenses have been struggling this year. That's the thing. We need to separate out the factors involved to make a proper diagnosis.

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