Quote:
Originally Posted by htismaqe
That 90's defense is never coming back. The rules have changed too much. Plus, we're an offensive team both in spirit and financially.
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Agreed - the league just isn't built for those kinds of defenses anymore.
But we do need a defense that can lean on a team. When the offense goes out there and gets an 18 point advantage, we need a defense that can treat the opponent like they're 'short stacked' and use that edge to just bury them.
I don't think it's realistic to expect the team to out there and build a defense that will win you games 17-13. But the defense absolutely has to be able to be sitting on a 21-3 lead facing 3rd and 5 w/ 3 minutes left in the half and the opponent buried in their own territory and finish that goddamn football game.
Or at least make the drive uncomfortable. The Bengals converted that 3rd down from their own 35 and 4 plays later had a touchdown.
Defense in today's NFL is about situational success. And this defense was ostensibly built for EXACTLY that scenario. But they just didn't come through. There's no reason we can't continue with the same sort of approach but execute it better. And the way to do that will be to continue to stack depth in the secondary while constructing a D-Line that can harass quarterbacks when they're in do or die situations.
We used to look at the QB position and say "Hey, we don't need a guy that will play a perfect game every time out. We need a guy who, at least once or twice in the post-season, can pull a game from the fire and steal us a win..."
Well now we have the inverse. I don't need a defense that wins us 4 games in the post-season. I need a defense that will get out there and just once or twice find a way to get us a win when the offense just wasn't firing on all cylinders.
That's not asking too much, IMO.