Remember they're trying to evaluate the players on where their talent currently is and where their mental understanding of the system and game are right now. They aren't mainly trying to win games right now.
"beast" wrote:
Honestly, I think Capers is not doing something profound like seeing who wants it more by being simple, rather he is basically showing the progression of this defense: last year we needed game reps of rushing the passer for the sake of getting our players used to the scheme and their assignments in real game-action.
This year, we clearly do not need that with one year of this scheme under our belts. So, we simply play a basic scheme.
I was a bit concerned last week with our defense's play, but this week after seeing a bit more press-coverage with absolutely no extra blitzers (simple 3-man rush) it became obvious that Capers is not going to tip his hand in the slightest.
Add to that, we had none of our starting LBs, top CB, or our starting SS from last year playing, then it shouldn't be a surprise we played so vanilla. I mean, we were basically missing more than half our starting defense from last year (excluding Jolly) so it should be no surprised we played so simple, and frankly struggled to stop the Seahawks' starters.
The NFL: Where Greg Jennings Happens.