Who do you MOST blame for the team's issues?

[DaFace]

Do we need another thread to gripe about last night? Of course we do! So here's one more.

Pick an option or add your own.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by The Franchise

I just don’t know how you fix this any more this season.

The defensive line has the talent…it’s just underperforming. I guess you hope that they figure it out.

The linebackers might get better with Gay starting over Niemann but even then…if the line is shit…the LBs aren’t going to stay clean.

The DBs are better off than the other two groups if they could get rid of Sorenson and his mistakes.

You ever play fantasy baseball? More specifically, H2H leagues. Sometimes getting rid of a bad player and replacing him with merely average is a greater benefit than adding a good player over an average one.

That's where we find ourselves with Sorensen. But it's a good news/bad news situation - the good news is all we need to do is locate average. The bad news is that we may not have average on the roster right now. I guess you just send Thornhill out there and hope.

As for what else you do - you have to put it on the players to trust themselves and their teammates. I think the Diggs pass was a result of Thornhill trying to do too much and cover for lost coverage on the left side. He turned a bad play into a worse one. When our run defense fails it's almost always because someone is out there trying to make the play instead of just doing their job and creating a play for someone else.

These guys have GOT to focus on doing their own job and trusting that their teammates will do theirs and the play will get made.

Of course that would be a lot easier if, y'know, their teammates weren't breaking down somewhere on seemingly every snap.

I think your best hope is that Jones and Clark get back in there and get you average play at DE, allowing the DTs to focus on gap control. That would free the 'backers up to flow/fill as needed while adding Gay's athleticism will take some burden off Bolton. Replace Sorensen with Thornhill to free up Mathieu a little bit more as well.

But I think if it is going to come together, its going to have to start at the DL. So long as it remains the problem it's been to this point, they're going to continue to play from behind the sticks and the Yakety Saks defense will continue...

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by louie aguiar

What happened to Tershawn Wharton? I bought into the hype that he was going to be a good player. Is he just undersized to hold up in the NFL?

At least prior to last week, Wharton had one of the best pass-rush win rates among interior lineman in the entire NFL.

It gets to the complementary failures thing I keep falling back on. Even when the DL does its job, the secondary tends to fall apart somewhere before it matters.

SOMEONE has to stand up taller to make any of this work.

[The Franchise]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

You ever play fantasy baseball? More specifically, H2H leagues. Sometimes getting rid of a bad player and replacing him with merely average is a greater benefit than adding a good player over an average one.

That's where we find ourselves with Sorensen. But it's a good news/bad news situation - the good news is all we need to do is locate average. The bad news is that we may not have average on the roster right now. I guess you just send Thornhill out there and hope.

As for what else you do - you have to put it on the players to trust themselves and their teammates. I think the Diggs pass was a result of Thornhill trying to do too much and cover for lost coverage on the left side. He turned a bad play into a worse one. When our run defense fails it's almost always because someone is out there trying to make the play instead of just doing their job and creating a play for someone else.

These guys have GOT to focus on doing their own job and trusting that their teammates will do theirs and the play will get made.

Of course that would be a lot easier if, y'know, their teammates weren't breaking down somewhere on seemingly every snap.

I think your best hope is that Jones and Clark get back in there and get you average play at DE, allowing the DTs to focus on gap control. That would free the 'backers up to flow/fill as needed while adding Gay's athleticism will take some burden off Bolton. Replace Sorensen with Thornhill to free up Mathieu a little bit more as well.

But I think if it is going to come together, its going to have to start at the DL. So long as it remains the problem it's been to this point, they're going to continue to play from behind the sticks and the Yakety Saks defense will continue...

At this point, you pull Sorenson and out Thornhill put there. You need to at least know if he’s going to be an answer moving forward.

Then you move Jones inside. Put Danna on the edge with Clark and find another DE for the rotation.

[Sassy Squatch]

Vernon

[louie aguiar]

Originally Posted by Red Dawg

Coaching? Players are more important than coaches and coaches are not on the field. Spags has three rings from being a DC so he is not some shit coach.
The rest is correct. Bad roster decisions and poor draft picks have caught up with us.

I don't think he's a shit coach. For whatever reason, though, the players don't seem to be understanding the scheme or responding well to the coaching. People are being left uncovered and are wide open, they weren't prepared at all for the RPO schemes they played (we know that's Lamar Jackson's bread and butter and we looked like we didn't prepare at all for those looks). I blame that on coaching.

Ultimately the defensive coordinator has to bear some of the blame for one of the worst defenses in NFL history through 5 weeks.

[comochiefsfan]

The biggest problems are easily:

1. Veach utterly failing to build this roster and defense in particular.

2. The D-Line sucking absolute ass while absorbing the vast majority of our cap. (Again, thanks Veach.)

3. The running game being such a non threat that teams are able to comfortably drop everyone back into coverage and take away the passing game. (Good job on that CEH pick Veach)

[crayzkirk]

It's the fans. We aren't fanny enough...

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by The Franchise

At this point, you pull Sorenson and out Thornhill put there. You need to at least know if he’s going to be an answer moving forward.

Then you move Jones inside. Put Danna on the edge with Clark and find another DE for the rotation.

Danna for 3-downs isn't the answer.

The answer is getting consistent effort from Reed and Nnadi inside (because that's who you're taking off the field by moving Jones inside) and having Danna rotate in for Clark on pass-rushing downs.

Danna isn't a starting DE. Too small, too green, not polished or explosive enough. He's a fine fill-in who can make things happen with fresh legs and a high motor, but he's not a 50+ snap/gm player.

[FloridaMan88]

On the subject of Chris Jones underachieving… he can’t play or practice with a wrist injury but Thuney played the entire game last night with a broken hand?

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by louie aguiar

I don't think he's a shit coach. For whatever reason, though, the players don't seem to be understanding the scheme or responding well to the coaching. People are being left uncovered and are wide open, they weren't prepared at all for the RPO schemes they played (we know that's Lamar Jackson's bread and butter and we looked like we didn't prepare at all for those looks). I blame that on coaching.

Ultimately the defensive coordinator has to bear some of the blame for one of the worst defenses in NFL history through 5 weeks.

Spags has fielded two of the worst defenses in NFL history. And he's routinely been at the top of genuinely bad defenses.

The 2009 Rams, 2012 Saints, 2015 Giants, 2017 Giants and 2011 Rams were genuinely atrocious defenses.

It's the same concern I had when we hired him - there's more bad than good on his resume. Those 2007/2008 Giants squads that made his name in the league are an awfully long time ago.

I don't know that it's fair to say he IS a bad coach...but it's fair to ask the question...

[comochiefsfan]

Fellas,

Spags can only work with who he has.

Frank Clark is injury prone and sucks. Chris Jones appears to be nursing an injured spirit this year. The rest of the line is garbage. Sorensen, garbage. Niemann, garbage. Corners, burnt toast. Linebackers, young and or injury prone.

This defensive roster is ATROCIOUS. I'm not sure Buddy Ryan could make it a competent unit. Veach has given Spags a pile of shit and asked him to make salad.

[KCJake]

Originally Posted by Red Dawg

Same way we lost the other games. Defense is shit and we turn the ball over.

It's 100% this. The defense is so bad. So bad that there's very little room for error. Turnovers are costing us games. And am I the only one that isn't seeing this "improved offensive line" ??? Mahomes is running for his life on nearly every passing down. Just like last season

[comochiefsfan]

Originally Posted by KCJake

It's 100% this. The defense is so bad. So bad that there's very little room for error. Turnovers are costing us games. And am I the only one that isn't seeing this "improved offensive line" ??? Mahomes is running for his life on nearly every passing down. Just like last season

The line seems better to me.

The problem is that Mahomes' pocket presence is not good.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by comochiefsfan

Fellas,

Spags can only work with who he has.

Frank Clark is injury prone and sucks. Chris Jones appears to be nursing an injured spirit this year. The rest of the line is garbage. Sorensen, garbage. Niemann, garbage. Corners, burnt toast. Linebackers, young and or injury prone.

This defensive roster is ATROCIOUS. I'm not sure Buddy Ryan could make it a competent unit. Veach has given Spags a pile of shit and asked him to make salad.

And that's all well and good.

But even before Spags was formally hired I got a lot of excuses as to why he failed and very few demonstrations of where/when he actually succeeded. And those times he succeeded he had probably the best pass-rushing DL in the league. As I said then - I don't need to hear why a person failed at his last stop, I need to know why he'll succeed at this one.

If all he can do is be successful when he has great players...what's he actually good for? I believe I called him Gunther 2.0 at the time and to date I've seen little to change that opinion.

I do think he's actually quite good at coaching up a secondary, but when I see coverages blown time and time and time again, it makes me wonder if the message is being lost. It's unlikely to be a teaching thing because there's very little changover on the roster. Something has the coordination in the defensive backfield a far cry from where it was a season ago.

So if the message is being lost and he's mostly a product of his players anyway...well maybe it's time for a change in the messenger...

[SupDock]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

And that's all well and good.

But even before Spags was formally hired I got a lot of excuses as to why he failed and very few demonstrations of where/when he actually succeeded. And those times he succeeded he had probably the best pass-rushing DL in the league. As I said then - I don't need to hear why a person failed at his last stop, I need to know why he'll succeed at this one.

If all he can do is be successful when he has great players...what's he actually good for? I believe I called him Gunther 2.0 at the time and to date I've seen little to change that opinion.

I do think he's actually quite good at coaching up a secondary, but when I see coverages blown time and time and time again, it makes me wonder if the message is being lost. It's unlikely to be a teaching thing because there's very little changover on the roster. Something has the coordination in the defensive backfield a far cry from where it was a season ago.

So if the message is being lost and he's mostly a product of his players anyway...well maybe it's time for a change in the messenger...

Completely agree, when this mini NFL players are failing to execute, you have to think there is a systemic issue going on.

Can’t cover, can’t run stop, can’t rush the QB.