Unless you play a lot of wide fronts, you'll lose some of the advantages of a freakish 1st step. You have him right over that OT's shoulder and it's just not as tough for the T to get kicked out.

I don't think he'd be a disaster there - I think many of us underestimate just how strong he's gotten. But his lower half is always gonna be a little undersized for a conventional 4-3 DE, IMO. So he'll struggle a bit at times especially in the run game. I think I'd rather have the sturdier DE that can set that edge a little better and the ability to kick Ford down on obvious passing downs and/or send some interesting blitzes with him involved.

This defense was top 10 in points allowed for the first 4 years Sutton was here. You know why that was? Houston, Berry, Poe, DJ and Tamba were all young and talented.

We don’t have that anymore.

You think talent isn’t an issue? Look at what happened when Ryan Shazier got hurt? The Steelers defense went to shit the moment that happened and haven’t recovered.
Why were the Falcons a quality defense but now aren’t? You think losing tons of guys to injuries doesn’t affect that?

Sutton has his sins, but there is not a doubt in anyone’s mind that this defense is chuck full of some terrible players.

We knew this was going to take more than one offseason to fix, especially without a 1st rd pick. It’s killed this team having their all pro safety that they expected to play (who practiced fine at camp) sit on the sideline while dogshit was put in his place.

You want to point the finger? Point it at Dorsey. He had years to find players and could not find an ILB, corner or safety who could replace these guys.

There's literally nothing left to do but be snarky when people don't want to listen to anything even remotely resembling reason or logic, they just want to bitch and moan incessantly. It isn't even about Sutton, it's about EVERYTHING - Berry, Sutton, Watkins, Veach, I could go on. We have the best QB in football and the front page is 75% bitch threads. If people are going to be reasonable, why should they expect to be treated reasonably?

You think Hunt made a mistake keeping the 2nd-best coach in football? Sutton has been here for years and other than the last 2, the defense has been top 10 in scoring defense. You can't just ignore that and pretend like it didn't happen. This isn't either/or, it isn't black or white, it isn't binary. They're all interrelated and there's more wrong with the defense than just Bob or just talent.

This is EXACTLY what I'm talking about. Nowhere, in anything I've ever said on the subject, have I even INSINUATED it would be hilarious for us to get stuck with a DC worse than Sutton. You're pulling stuff out of thin air and it's just laughable, thus the snark...

With current offensive trends in the NFL, the future of Defense would appear to be nickel package with a hybrid safety/LB to cover TEs. Jabril Peppers for example. The Dline will have to be guys that can get to the QB more than stop the run. Jones would be integral to that, as well as Houston as a DE.

Jones, Williams, Nnadi, Houston

Ford, Hitchens, DoD

Jones and Houston can rush the passer and set the edge. Williams and Nnadi are run stuffing fatties. These guys rush the passer and protect the LBs.

Ford has the speed to run in space and can also come up and blitz next to Chris Jones. Hitchens and DoD traditional 4-3 linebackers who can both run well enough to handle it.

On passing downs:

Ford, Jones, Bailey?, Houston

Inside and outside pass rushing. Will Bailey take a pay cut to stay?

Texas Christian has been running a base 4-2-5 for years. That's probably the way things are trending.

But it's the nature of that 5th DB that is tricky. Could that guy be DoD? Very possibly, if he gets more savvy with experience.

Really, what does this mean then?

By the way, it's in human nature to complain/discuss what needs to be improved rather than celebrate what is already good. Especially when it comes to people and sports, they always are trying to figure out how to improve their team, always.

Yeah I like Nnadi. That was a good pick.

The DL freelancing and trying to get sacks has had me concerned for weeks as well.

I don't know how Sutton gets that corrected. They'll tell them what alignment to be in, what technique to play, what adjustments to make, etc. It's on the players to execute on the field.

For those of you saying it's on Sutton's leadership, what is he supposed to do? He takes him out. I'm sure he communicates what he needs to correct. Jones has his own teammates trying to correct him and he's ignoring them.

Love Chris Jones as a pass rusher, but he could be the fatal flaw of this defense. It doesn't matter what Sutton does or if you have the All Pro first team defense surrounding you, if you're not willing to play team defense, that's extremely ****ed up. Like it can't be stated enough how problematic that is.

Which is inexcusable. A coaching staff with THIS much experience should NEVER get caught off-guard.

Have you actually looked at how much money is currently being spent on the defense?

Houston, Berry, Hitchens are 3 of your 5 or 6 highest paid players. Ford is pretty well paid on the 5th year as well.

It means exactly what it says - that people are going to bitch about the TALENT after Bob is fired, not the next coordinator.

Unless YOU are implying that firing Bob is going to fix everything. In which case, all I can do is shake my head.

I don't think even the homerist of homers thought Mahomes would come in and do what he's done.

You still have to be prepared for the offense to be better than it was with Alex Smith. They went into the offseason with a plan that appears, at least on the surface, to assume that there would be a drop off from Alex Smith.

If they REALLY thought that, shame on them.

I worry that with these types of fronts you are susceptible to just getting ran on.

The pendulum will swing back the other way at some point. Teams will go heavy and just run it at you.

Not last years Alex Smith. That was a top 5ish offense.

I don't think any of us thought we'd get THIS.