Offense
 

Yesterday, I watched three NFL football games, a rare day in which I was free enough to do so.

The games I watched were Mahomes carving up the Browns defense, Brees carving up the Rams defense, Goff carving up the Saints defense, Rodgers carving up the Patriots defense, and Brady carving up the Packers defense.

Their stats vary and to say that they could do literally anything they wanted on offense would be an understatement, but after watching football for the day, I gotta say, I miss defense.

That's not to cast aspersions on Chiefs football in 2018, which is as good as its ever been, but I've played team sports my entire life, and I've always played defense. Soccer, basketball, football, baseball/softball... I've always prided myself on defense.

I come from the franchise of Derrick Thomas, too. I love a passrusher bending the edge, and press coverage on the outside, and a punishing linebacker smack on a foolish receiver across the middle, a defensive tackle being nigh unmovable in the middle of the defensive line. I love Eric Berry tracking down Gronkowski, Dontari Poe collapsing the A gap, Derrick Johnson jumping the under routes, Tamba Hali's jiu jitsu to shed a tackle. With the endless rule changes, I'm afraid that has been taken from us.

Again: I'm not complaining about the Chiefs 2018, but rather the NFL 2018.

I don't know what to do here, folks. Are we just doomed to lose that aspect of the game at this point?

It's a pendulum and eventually it will swing back the other direction.

Until the NFL thinks that fans want defense you/we are.

It seems to ebb and flow from the run and shoot in the 80's then tough D's being dominate, to today's game. However, it will be really hard to go in the other direction with the rules, not only in the NFL, but in college and high school. Players can't be nearly as aggressive... I miss it too...

Ebb and flow, brother.

Na, I don't think so. We're just finally hitting the tipping point with two decades of rule changes that largely favor offense. The era of a truly dominant defense is dead.

I really don’t want to see receivers hit hard over the middle, as I’d prefer not to lose hill, Watkins, and kelce for a significant amount of time.

Someone will exploit something.

I was thinking about this the other day. Now that NFL seems to be fully, well at at least partially, embracing the 'air raid' college offenses and college concepts, are there an college defensive concepts that could be incorporated into NFL defenses? I don't watch college ball so I don't know.

College teams aren't really known for their defenses.

I'm not the best person to state an observation, but it seems college offenses spread it out with 5 receivers because their worst receiver is typically a better option than the defenses 4th string+ defensive back. If the QB has 2.5+ seconds to throw they will absolutely have at least 1 guy open. A great pass rush can tip the game in favor of the D since it can garner a sack or a shit throw for an INT.

For the most part, it all comes down to talent. Bama is straight up massacring everyone with their all blue-chip team (more or less). They have so much talent across the board even the next most talented teams barely have a chance in hell to compete. They aren't even fun to watch. It's like HS starters vs JV every week.

My shit prediction is we see more 4 fronts in the NFL with big ****ers on the line to stop the run; big backs are coming back to destroy the smaller coverage linebackers.

Two tweener linebackers that are solid at both pass and run will possibly become the norm, as well as a hybrid LB/S like Jabril Peppers floating around with 4 DBs.

So nickel defense with a hybrid safety instead of a NB?

where can I stream one of your softball games?

If you watched the Patriots/Green Bay game last night and thought that was 2 offenses carving up defenses, then I would say you don’t know what the hell youre looking at.

I thought that too. That was a good defensive game.

Is it not a sign of the issue that we're now used to 48 point games being a "good defensive game"?