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I think it was Om who said if you took our current PPG allowed and extrapolated it over a season we would allow a league record number of points. for a team in its first year of a new scheme with all new players that might be acceptable, for a team in its 3rd year of a scheme thats completely unacceptable.
I take defence pretty seriously, as a former DC myself, I notice little things, I notice passrush styles, I notice coverages, I notice a lot of things that make my friends get annoyed with me when we watch games at the pub lol. I know some of you are the same, thats why I love the chat here on game day lol.
anyway....
3 years ago some of you argued with me when I said that the 3-4 was a stupid decision given our current personelle and the fact that we were essentially taking a strength and making it into a weakness. I was told that players can play in any scheme and that the 3-4 was the wave of the future. I argued that Haslett although shannys pick, was a terrible DC who had never been the architect of any good defences and that he wasnt a great scheme guy or gameplanner, more of a motivator type. I argued that we werent a good fit for the 3-4 due to depth issues and that we were going to be terrible as we were going to be running a dumb versio of the 3-4 as haslett was not a 3-4 guy despite his pittsburgh roots. the argument against me was " shanny would know better than you and shanny thinks it will work" there were quotes from shanny about how he thought the switch would be immediately good and how it would unchain Orakpo, how we would be more aggressive and better on defence.
2 years ago after watching our defence go from 11 to 31 (or something close, im tired and not motivated enough to check now) I was told " well we were recovering from the previous regime and it was our first year in the scheme blah blah" I countered with the fact that you dont change schemes with an eye on getting worse, that stats show that almost every good team that switches to a 3-4 immediately improves and that those teams put a lot of resources into the change BUT that the majority have the key pieces in place beforehand. I pointed at the houston texans as a prime example, and the packers as another. yet again the arguments flew fast and furious that I was jumping the gun, after all we replaced almost every single player (which actually showed that my initial position that we were completely ill suited to run the 3-4 was absolutely correct. something which I never doubted.) but somehow that was ignored and now it was " well the guys are all new so they need time" ignoring the fact that stats show that teams should improve immediately.
Last year after watching our defence fall so hard, we started thinking perhaps with all this new blood this defence was turning the corner, yeah it had holes but we had some good young building blocks in Kerrigan who was easily the key to the resurgence, and we were excited about Jenkins who flashed some great play before an early injury. Riley started to improve and Landry looked great early (which I said was a mirage as a safety making that many tackles shows a bad scheme lol) however our defence after a massive turnover in players was about the same as it was under Blah and finished around the middle of the pack again, but this time we thought there might be some hope. we lost some close games, mostly because of some questionable calls, (hall one on one with no safety help anyone?) and surely we would iron those out?
This year we are seeing the exact same mistakes that we saw in year one, not just from the players but from the coaches, the schemes against the saints started off looking good, we lined up in a 4 man front FINALLY and rarely rushed less than 5, we were aggressive and although we allowed a lot of points and yards, we also got turnovers and pressured some bad decisions by a very good QB. but then something strange happened, suddenly towards the end of the game Haslett went into his now well known shell, he started calling soft zones and those assinine "disguised" coverages that more often lead to blown coverages than picks for us. we started leaving Hall in a soft mid zone with no over the top help and we were shocked when the saints almost came back?
Dont even get me started on Bradford and the Rams, do you guys remember Bradfords rookie game when he torched us? do you remember what defence was played for the majority of that game? if you were in the chat with us you would remember me spazzing out about runningsoft zones aginst a weak oline and rookie qb, you would recall that I bashed haslett pretty much the entire 3 hours and asked why in the hell you would not blitz against what had to be the second worst Oline in the league protecting a rookie, I believe they put up over 30 on us. well guess what? Haslett again tried to fool the rookie, playing combo and disguised soft zones, often rushing 3, sometimes 4 and getting almost no pressure, and what happened? and keep in mind, this was against a rams team who was starting an oline that actually might be as bad as ours.
Against the Bengals we got banged up but worse yet we went into a shell again, soft middle zones, even wehn we did send blitzes instead of press man we played off man which is a recipe for disaster in the NFL, if you let a guy like green get a clean release almost any QB is gonna just throw deep, and thats what they did. when we did blitz it looked unsound, like in our first year when guys blitzed and instead of playing a tight man to man, we ran the far side LB across the field in some weird cross coverage that basically puts him in a trail position right off the hop lol, then we just played soft and sent obvious blitzes with not many stunts, I honestly turned the game off after the 3rd Q because I was getting so angry.
So heres what we have learned in 3 years of Haslett
1- he can get guys amped up, thats never been in doubt, but the problem is sustaining that rush, we will play like beasts one week, guys flying to the ball guys making extra efforts, but then the following week we look flat and worn out.
2- he cant game plan for crap, the good OC's always seem one step ahead, Reid has made Haslett his girlfriend, so have the Rams. his game plans even when they work out (like against the saints) rely on the offence to score big because they are often unsound and give up huge chunks of yards and sometimes points.
3- he doesnt adjust, and when he does adjust its rarely for the better. late in games he goes into prevent mode far too quickly, and worse yet, he calls the same bunk zones with the same bunk audibles. I cant count how many times ive screamed NOOOOO when I see hall line up and is obviously in off man late in the game with no safety over the top.
4- hes a lame duck, as a DC if a guy approached me with a job offer and said " you WILL RUN THIS FORMATION AND ALIGNMENT, and then you can have this job." id tell him to eff off, I will decide my defence based on the players I have available and I will run the best defence possible because thats MY reputation on the line as a DC, so no I wont just run the flavour of the month because you watched the green bay superbowl video. you want a 3-4 guy? go hire a 3-4 guy, unless you have obvious 3-4 players in which case thats what I would run BECAUSE THAT WOULD GIVE ME THE BEST CHANCE TO BE GOOD. instead Haslett jumped at the job.
I dont think we can even fire him, there are no better options available now, so we are stuck watching this, but Ill be amazed if hes here next year, Shanny isnt stupid, I almost wonder if he brought Haslett here knowing hed need a fall guy in season 3 lol but maybe im paranoid.
anyway, Haslett has to go, I just dont think we can afford to let him go until the end of the season.
I take defence pretty seriously, as a former DC myself, I notice little things, I notice passrush styles, I notice coverages, I notice a lot of things that make my friends get annoyed with me when we watch games at the pub lol. I know some of you are the same, thats why I love the chat here on game day lol.
anyway....
3 years ago some of you argued with me when I said that the 3-4 was a stupid decision given our current personelle and the fact that we were essentially taking a strength and making it into a weakness. I was told that players can play in any scheme and that the 3-4 was the wave of the future. I argued that Haslett although shannys pick, was a terrible DC who had never been the architect of any good defences and that he wasnt a great scheme guy or gameplanner, more of a motivator type. I argued that we werent a good fit for the 3-4 due to depth issues and that we were going to be terrible as we were going to be running a dumb versio of the 3-4 as haslett was not a 3-4 guy despite his pittsburgh roots. the argument against me was " shanny would know better than you and shanny thinks it will work" there were quotes from shanny about how he thought the switch would be immediately good and how it would unchain Orakpo, how we would be more aggressive and better on defence.
2 years ago after watching our defence go from 11 to 31 (or something close, im tired and not motivated enough to check now) I was told " well we were recovering from the previous regime and it was our first year in the scheme blah blah" I countered with the fact that you dont change schemes with an eye on getting worse, that stats show that almost every good team that switches to a 3-4 immediately improves and that those teams put a lot of resources into the change BUT that the majority have the key pieces in place beforehand. I pointed at the houston texans as a prime example, and the packers as another. yet again the arguments flew fast and furious that I was jumping the gun, after all we replaced almost every single player (which actually showed that my initial position that we were completely ill suited to run the 3-4 was absolutely correct. something which I never doubted.) but somehow that was ignored and now it was " well the guys are all new so they need time" ignoring the fact that stats show that teams should improve immediately.
Last year after watching our defence fall so hard, we started thinking perhaps with all this new blood this defence was turning the corner, yeah it had holes but we had some good young building blocks in Kerrigan who was easily the key to the resurgence, and we were excited about Jenkins who flashed some great play before an early injury. Riley started to improve and Landry looked great early (which I said was a mirage as a safety making that many tackles shows a bad scheme lol) however our defence after a massive turnover in players was about the same as it was under Blah and finished around the middle of the pack again, but this time we thought there might be some hope. we lost some close games, mostly because of some questionable calls, (hall one on one with no safety help anyone?) and surely we would iron those out?
This year we are seeing the exact same mistakes that we saw in year one, not just from the players but from the coaches, the schemes against the saints started off looking good, we lined up in a 4 man front FINALLY and rarely rushed less than 5, we were aggressive and although we allowed a lot of points and yards, we also got turnovers and pressured some bad decisions by a very good QB. but then something strange happened, suddenly towards the end of the game Haslett went into his now well known shell, he started calling soft zones and those assinine "disguised" coverages that more often lead to blown coverages than picks for us. we started leaving Hall in a soft mid zone with no over the top help and we were shocked when the saints almost came back?
Dont even get me started on Bradford and the Rams, do you guys remember Bradfords rookie game when he torched us? do you remember what defence was played for the majority of that game? if you were in the chat with us you would remember me spazzing out about runningsoft zones aginst a weak oline and rookie qb, you would recall that I bashed haslett pretty much the entire 3 hours and asked why in the hell you would not blitz against what had to be the second worst Oline in the league protecting a rookie, I believe they put up over 30 on us. well guess what? Haslett again tried to fool the rookie, playing combo and disguised soft zones, often rushing 3, sometimes 4 and getting almost no pressure, and what happened? and keep in mind, this was against a rams team who was starting an oline that actually might be as bad as ours.
Against the Bengals we got banged up but worse yet we went into a shell again, soft middle zones, even wehn we did send blitzes instead of press man we played off man which is a recipe for disaster in the NFL, if you let a guy like green get a clean release almost any QB is gonna just throw deep, and thats what they did. when we did blitz it looked unsound, like in our first year when guys blitzed and instead of playing a tight man to man, we ran the far side LB across the field in some weird cross coverage that basically puts him in a trail position right off the hop lol, then we just played soft and sent obvious blitzes with not many stunts, I honestly turned the game off after the 3rd Q because I was getting so angry.
So heres what we have learned in 3 years of Haslett
1- he can get guys amped up, thats never been in doubt, but the problem is sustaining that rush, we will play like beasts one week, guys flying to the ball guys making extra efforts, but then the following week we look flat and worn out.
2- he cant game plan for crap, the good OC's always seem one step ahead, Reid has made Haslett his girlfriend, so have the Rams. his game plans even when they work out (like against the saints) rely on the offence to score big because they are often unsound and give up huge chunks of yards and sometimes points.
3- he doesnt adjust, and when he does adjust its rarely for the better. late in games he goes into prevent mode far too quickly, and worse yet, he calls the same bunk zones with the same bunk audibles. I cant count how many times ive screamed NOOOOO when I see hall line up and is obviously in off man late in the game with no safety over the top.
4- hes a lame duck, as a DC if a guy approached me with a job offer and said " you WILL RUN THIS FORMATION AND ALIGNMENT, and then you can have this job." id tell him to eff off, I will decide my defence based on the players I have available and I will run the best defence possible because thats MY reputation on the line as a DC, so no I wont just run the flavour of the month because you watched the green bay superbowl video. you want a 3-4 guy? go hire a 3-4 guy, unless you have obvious 3-4 players in which case thats what I would run BECAUSE THAT WOULD GIVE ME THE BEST CHANCE TO BE GOOD. instead Haslett jumped at the job.
I dont think we can even fire him, there are no better options available now, so we are stuck watching this, but Ill be amazed if hes here next year, Shanny isnt stupid, I almost wonder if he brought Haslett here knowing hed need a fall guy in season 3 lol but maybe im paranoid.
anyway, Haslett has to go, I just dont think we can afford to let him go until the end of the season.
and poof there went a boatload of cap room.
This team is an unfinished project. The Qb looks great if he can stay healthy. Defenses across the board suck this season, most likely due to the rule changes. I still say we will contend for a playoff spot:eclipsee_Victoria: