First, let's examine the talent on the defense. For the sake of argument, let's break the defense down into levels 1-5. 5 is the highest.

Level 5
N/A

Level 4
Mike Daniels

Level 3
Clay Matthews
Nick Perry
HaHa Clinton-Dix
Kenny Clark
Blake Martinez
Morgan Burnett
Joe Thomas

Level 2
Jake Ryan
Josh Jones
Kevin King
Davone House
Josh Jones
Dean Lowry

Level 1
Damarious Randle
Quentin Rollins

Secondary
First problem is Randle and Rollins. If you rely on young players, you can't whiff on your first 2 picks in the same draft. Randle doesn't have the athleticism to play on the outside. Not bad on the inside. But he struggles on the outside. So you took a slot CB with your first pick. Why? Casey Heyward is a great slot CB, and Micah Hyde is very good as well. That's just poor roster management. We should still have one of those guys. Solution here is keep Randle exclusively to the slot. Rollins shouldn't see the field. His technique is awful. Bring in Josh Jones at safety and let Morgan Burnett man up in coverage. Also play more man outside the 20s. Use zone inside the 20s when the field gets smaller for the offense. QBs just pick our zone apart. Growing pains with Kevin King, but he has the size and athleticism to hang on the outside. You're going to have to live with his mistakes as he grows though. Clinton-Dix and Josh Jones are the future at safety. Both have good size, speed combos. Bottom line is the secondary is young. If you rely on youth, then you are going to see mistakes.

Linebackers
Blake Martinez is awesome. Love his development. Reminds me of Zach Thomas. Jake Ryan plays too slow, and he is small. Unfortunately, I don't see a solution on the roster. Maybe Kyle Fackrell? His size helps the run defense, and you can sub him out for Josh Jones and Joe Thomas in nickel and dime packages. I rather they play a 3-3-5 than a 2-4-5. Not much a scheme can do here. Good teams will take advantage of the mismatches.

D-Line
Kenny Clark is coming along nicely. Dean Lowry is a work in progress. He looks the part, but I don't see him exploding at the snap. He is very slow to react yet. Mike Daniels is the second or third best player on the team. He is also getting better. That is great! Not enough depth for a team that wants to rotate guys though. The top three play too many snaps, and wear down into the 3rd quarter. Bottom line is scale back their snaps in the first half.

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I really love this post so I split it into it's own topic. Matt, you can hunt me down and beat me up later if you'd like. :)

I think this is an incredible post because it breaks things down very well. I would artibituratly say a team needs to have twice as many level 3 players than they do level 2. And i think you need two level 5 guys and a few level 4 guys.

What do you all feel about that?

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