Daronte Jones and the Defensive Staffing Thread

[Voice_of_Reason]

I will say that recently it has come to my attention that Harbaugh is a bit of a jerk. So, he may be the type to think he is playing a grand game - maybe the more he directly mentions a player, the less likely he is to take him? My problem here is his history with Reed and Hamilton implies that Downs is the pick.

I wonder if he (Harbaugh) has any history of trying to fake people out (or the opposite, a history of open transmissions of intent).

How did anybody not know both Harbaughs were enormous male roosters?

They are bigger dicks than Ser Arlan of Pennytree’s member.

(If you’re not watching A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, you won’t insert that reference but you should go watch the show because it’s about the best Game of Thrones stuff since the end of season 6 of the original game of thrones, which be out 10 years ago. It’s really good.)

 

[method man]

Whitt said he was going to do the same thing Kirk said was so brilliantly implemented by Macdonald. I recall this only because it sounded so refreshing at the time.



So what happened? Were our players incapable of pulling it off or was it a coaching issue?

I'm excited for the new look Daronte defense but the concept of exploiting the QB's typical reads and forcing him to adjust post-snap ain't all that new or refreshing to me now.

Whitt didn’t lie. We tried match zone and other complex coverages and these guys just couldn’t pick it up for whatever reason. DQ didn’t try to mask anything when he took over and the defense played better.

Could be a coaching issue or a football intelligence issue w Quan, Mikey etc

 

[burgold]

From his predraft stuff, Mikey is supposed to be a very smart football player so I don't think it was him not understanding his assignments. The answer is probably manifold, but my guess is that zones get super stressed if the front seven generate no pressure and the holes get bigger and bigger as receivers navigate through them. Also, I've always heard about screwups that happen because players try to cover for a teammate instead of minding to their responsibily so maybe players were cheating their responsibilities and guessing wrong a lot? Also, I think Whitt was just bad at his job.

 

[Boone]

Although I did call into question how sure a thing Sainristil is as an outside corner on the most recent pod, I think the most obvious question is, how much was his 'meh' 2025 performance due to his talents, the scheme, and Joe Whitt Jr. and how much of it was simply our lack of a pass rush?

Before injuries piled up, we had a *decent* pass rush but when we lost Armstrong and others, it sort of understandably evaporated.

Without being able to consistently pressure a QB, most DB rooms in the NFL are going to get eaten alive no matter how talented they are. As the other guys on the Bling Pig podcast talked about this week, you have to have both a quality pass rush and capable DBs to field an effective defense. We just haven't had that and that is why so many want us to go big on edge rushers in free agency and the upcoming draft.

I think the jury is still out on Sainristil but I am still hopeful he is a diamond in the rough and we will see more encouraging signs of that once we improve our edge talent on this team.

 

[KDawg]

Sainristil played well under Whitt in ‘24.

So the real question is: what was the difference?

And you hit on one of them, pass rush. We had none.

But I think the other reason is under discussed. We didn’t re-sign Jeremy Chinn. Chinn was arguably the most valuable piece of the ‘24 defense along with Luvu.

We went from a league worst d in ‘23, to a middle of the table semi capable D in ‘24, back to a bad D in ‘25.

Whitt was the coordinator in both years.

The major differences:

-Lack of a pass rush (we had a good rush in ‘24)
-Getting too cute with Luvu (we used him much more straight forward in ‘24)
-Safeties were worse (Chinn was 117 tackles and 2 sacks worth of run/pass D as well as the fulcrum)

So what was the biggest difference? The three things that made us good were completely changed or removed. Instead of improving the things that were problematic, we created new problems.

I don’t think Whitt is bad at his job. He’s okay. I think we failed in personnel.

 

[Boone]

Good points KDawg. Similar to what we did at WR. Some really questionable roster decisions by Peters... I really think it's fair to question him on many of the decisions made after 2024.

 

[Always Commander Never Captain]

I standby my thought that Chinn was overrated in 2024. He was often the target of passing plays when they wanted a 1st down. Somehow that was him as the largest victim instead of Wagner. Chinn leaves and then Wagner gets extremely exploited.

Chinn racking up tackle numbers as he tackles the guy who just caught the pass against him.

He had a passer rating allowed of 131.2 in 2024. That's...not good.

Sainristil falling off was being not so good in the slot and surprisingly better as an outside corner despite his size. Pass rush didn't help either, but it wasn't like we even had an average one in 2024. Fowler had an absurd sack to pressure ratio that was not sustainable, and he didn't get enough pressures to make up for it. His second half pass rushing effectiveness was bad...buy that coincided with Sainristil playing better because he was playing outside.

Fowler went right back to sucking in 2025 with a normal sack to pressure ratio. Basically...Fowler got extremely lucky in the first half of 2024.

 

[KDawg]

I standby my thought that Chinn was overrated in 2024. He was often the target of passing plays when they wanted a 1st down. Somehow that was him as the largest victim instead of Wagner. Chinn leaves and then Wagner gets extremely exploited.

Chinn racking up tackle numbers as he tackles the guy who just caught the pass against him.

He had a passer rating allowed of 131.2 in 2024. That's...not good.

Sainristil falling off was being not so good in the slot and surprisingly better as an outside corner despite his size.

You can stand by that. Evidence suggests losing him impacted our defense significantly, though.

His role was as a fulcrum. He’s not really a coverage guy. Yes, he is weak in coverage, but his presence allowed us to do some things in the run game and pass game that we weren’t able to do this year. While I don’t think Chinn is an elite player - his skillset and the way he played physically and violent brought another level to this defense. Letting him go wasn’t the issue. Letting him go with no replacement was.

 

[Always Commander Never Captain]

You can stand by that. Evidence suggests losing him impacted our defense significantly, though.

His role was as a fulcrum. He’s not really a coverage guy. Yes, he is weak in coverage, but his presence allowed us to do some things in the run game and pass game that we weren’t able to do this year. While I don’t think Chinn is an elite player - his skillset and the way he played physically and violent brought another level to this defense. Letting him go wasn’t the issue. Letting him go with no replacement was.

When he only got a contract of $6M a year, the pros and cons seemed fine for keeping him.

I want to know more of what went wrong with Quan Martin. He completely fell off. Maybe the loss of Chinn backs up your notion.

 

[KDawg]

When he only got a contract of $6M a year, the pros and cons seemed fine for keeping him.

I want to know more of what went wrong with Quan Martin. He completely fell off. Maybe the loss of Chinn backs up your notion.

I didn’t study Quan in either year, but based on the games I’d say they asked Quan to do different things as well. Things he hasn’t done. Likely to help cover the vacancy left by Chinn’s skill set.

 

[peanut0862]

Not saying a good pass rush wouldn't help him but Sainristil seemed to be 10 to 15 yards away from the player he was guarding way to often

 

[method man]

Not saying a good pass rush wouldn't help him but Sainristil seemed to be 10 to 15 yards away from the player he was guarding way to often

On Sain, see the below from Mark Bullock. Tl;dr is Sain looks better on the outside because the position is less mentally complex and he can play off man on the outside and he can’t do that in the slot. He is very uncomfortable with press man.

I’ve seen enough with him where he can give you average outside CB2 play while giving you turnover upside. He can play both man and zone outside. Ignore the measurables, follow the tape and let him play there

Reviewing CB Mike Sainristil's second-year struggles

Breaking down where Sainristil has struggled and how the Commanders might go about fixing those issues

markbullock.substack.com

 

[SkinsGuru]

From his predraft stuff, Mikey is supposed to be a very smart football player so I don't think it was him not understanding his assignments. The answer is probably manifold, but my guess is that zones get super stressed if the front seven generate no pressure and the holes get bigger and bigger as receivers navigate through them. Also, I've always heard about screwups that happen because players try to cover for a teammate instead of minding to their responsibily so maybe players were cheating their responsibilities and guessing wrong a lot? Also, I think Whitt was just bad at his job.

It may be true that no pressure stresses zones, but our coverage schemes left people open from the snap. There were times no pressure was ever going to get to people as the QB snapping the ball and throwing. Not looking, players were WIDE open immediately some how. I didn't understand how. But i could have gotten open against our defense as they were leaving people wide open (zone or man).

 

[Bulldog]

Let me put it this way, I have more confidence in Jones ability to program a defense than I necessarily have in Adam Peters to get the right players so Jones can actually step in and do it.

Lattimore? Javon Kinlaw? Michael Davis? Will Harris? Whitt was not a great coach but look at the talent. Would Bill Parcells or Belichick in their primes win on defense with these players?

And then there's the decision to pay Daron Payne almost $27M in 2026 on the last year of his contract.

I sure hope that Jones not only signed off on but advocated for keeping Payne because he fits what he wants to achieve in re scheme on defense.

 

[Conn]

Let me put it this way, I have more confidence in Jones ability to program a defense than I necessarily have in Adam Peters to get the right players so Jones can actually step in and do it.

Lattimore? Javon Kinlaw? Michael Davis? Will Harris? Whitt was not a great coach but look at the talent. Would Bill Parcells or Belichick in their primes win on defense with these players?

And then there's the decision to pay Daron Payne almost $27M in 2026 on the last year of his contract.

I sure hope that Jones not only signed off on but advocated for keeping Payne because he fits what he wants to achieve in re scheme on defense.

I’ve been very critical of Peters as well

But if you’re skeptical of the org from the top down, why do you have any trust in the 47-year old first time coordinator they hired when most assistants seemingly didn’t want to come here with Quinn on the hot seat?

 

[Bulldog]

I am not saying I have 100% trust in Jones, but rather I have relatively more faith in his ability to use a proven scheme he helped run into being effective here IF he gets the right players.

Whether Peters brings in the right players and Jones has a fair chance to me is a larger question, especially given decisions on Lattimore but even more broadly on letting some guys go, which may be OK, but then failing to backfill with better players, etc.

It's not that Jeremy Chinn was a foundational player but the fact Will Harris ended up being an underwhelming replacement that bites a bit into the trust factor.

I have the same concerns about left guard and center.

Yes, we may bring in players but are they going to be better players than Paul and Biadasz were in 2025?

If they are, then that's fine. But if not, we will be moving in place going nowhere.

A stable and solid OL is priority #1 in helping Daniels in 2026.

 

[Conn]

Hopefully the protege follows suit

 

[SkinsFTW]

Hopefully he improves the defense faster than Flores because if he doesn't then we will have the No1 blitzing team with the 25th rank in pressures this season.

 

[Conn]

 

[Commander Wraith]

Hopefully he improves the defense faster than Flores because if he doesn't then we will have the No1 blitzing team with the 25th rank in pressures this season.

Wonder if we’ll try to fast track the transition by adding a/some former Vikings…