I can see the argument; I was working along the lines of thinking that if there's no player who can present a physical match up in terms of both strength and pace (we can obviously do one or the other), then perhaps we need to worry less about taking on the receiver and more about making it as difficult as possible for the QB. Cro is probably the best ball hawk on the team and he has the athletic abilities and size to make throws and catches much more difficult. I agree that Wilson is probably more effective after the catch, it would be better to stop the catches in the first place though. I reckon most QBs would be less inclined to take on Cromartie than Wilson.
Gronkowski hasn't got Lewis's pace, Hernandez doesn't have his size. They're good players but neither presents the sort of physical mismatch that Lewis does.
Kerry Rhodes plays to never put himself in harms way. It's obvious his agent told him this sometime in between years 2 and 3 on the Jets. Happened to be great advice...for Kerry Rhodes. Sucks for the team he's on. He'll carve out a nice 12 year career
Garrett McIntyre could be that man, hes fast and strong. Only thing I'm not 100% certain of is his containment abilities.
hahaha..i guess I'm awful at sugarcoating it. Yeah, I agree with you, BB....one thing this defense lacks is a good coverage Linebacker, and we didn't upgrade the safety position either (I was hoping we would've in the draft, maybe next year).
We could've kept Dig. He hits like a truck too, and he's faster. I would start Pool over E.Smith....Smith just isn't fast enough, and I really don't want to watch Smith get burned all season.
This. I still can't understand why we let Dig walk - especially to NE. I really thought he was coming into form toward the end of last year.
He couldn't cover a 3 too'ed tree sloth. He was the worst safety in the secondary when it came to coverage. He may have looked the part physically, but does this defense need a statue of Zeus? I am sure the FO didn't resign him because of his poor coverage skills.
I understand that...but watching E.Smith play the position last sunday was awful. And since Dig can at least "run", I'd rather take the lesser of 2 evils. But that's neither here nor there...Dig is gonzo. I'd still put in Pool over E.Smith.
Well yeah the concern about TE coverage is very much related to knowing what the Pats are doing with their TE's. Yeah, a big concern. The problem with the suggestion about putting Kyle on the TE is he's not normally in there with the base D. I would not put him in there on the base D, since that would take away from the run stops the safeties are better at. But in obvious passing downs, it could be tried. Assuming the opponent is not in hurry up, which of course could defeat substitutions.
I don't blame Sutton. I blame coaching in general. Offenses (some not ours) have evolved to short quick plays to negate the monster DE that teams love so much (Rex, it appears gets this and likes corners) Why is it, we make DLmen into OG's, yet, no one can find a Fast TE, with suspect hands and turn him into a cover guy?
Yeah, from now on I am going to have to think of you as Mr. Nice Guy. Heh. Anyway, yeah, looking at capabilities of the D rather than individual players, as a unit this is the D's weakest point, I think.
On Smith, putting aside the organizational weakness on covering TE's, it was after all just one play in one game, although it sure was a big one. Let's see how he does this weekend and the next couple before we tar and feather him. That would just make it harder to tell if he's black or white, among other things.
Marcedes is doubtful for Sunday... that would really put the kibash on this situation for this week huh
Rotate the D Hate to say it but if we really start rotating the defensive front(DT,DE,LB) we should be alright. McEntyre,Bellore and Mauga need to play. I'm sure we rotate our DT's but we need more rotation on the DE's and especially the LB's. The secondary is fine, except for our safeties. Put Marquice Cole in more also.
I like jim leonhard and all but is there anybody he can actually cover in man? Seems like that really limits our blitz packages and coverage schemes. Not fair that its smiths fault by default
A lot of teams are relying on big tight ends now and everybody is getting burned. We need to develop a new type of player to cover tight ends... a 6'5" 275 lb. cornerback with extra long arms and laser eyes.
