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Originally Posted by digi2fish
don't blame on the D, they scored equally to the O today.
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That's not a good outlook on it when you take into consideration that our offense took on one of the best D's in the league, while our defense couldn't handle an offense that's below average, even WITH their best receiver and running back. No question our offense hasn't been what it can be though, and they'll need to step it up if this team has any real aspirations of winning a ring this season.
As for this topic, it's clearly the players and not the scheme. I do happen to think GRob's a dumbass and that his scheme wouldn't have worked well even with average-to-above average players, but when you can't make tackles then the scheme matters very little.
I think our inability to tackle is just a side effect of being way too slow on defense. When you can't get to gaps quick enough to slow down blocking schemes, you're leaving yourself vulnerable. I think that's one reason why read-and-react didn't work last year. You're spending too much time reading and not reacting, to put it simply.
I think I saw a few bright spots from our D today though. There were a handful of times that we took down Foster for losses. On their first couple of possessions Foster would run for like 5 on first, and then lose 2 or 3 on second down. That works for me. It just seems like on 3rd down we just have to cross our fingers and hope a receiver drops a pass. Until we can get rid of that type of mindset, I don't have huge expectations for the team this year.
I'm happy with the play of Dalton and Warfield though, to take a positive outlook on the game.