Stephens looks like a prototypical cover 2 corner that they’re trying to round peg square hole. He’s strong and can reroute receivers at the LOS. He can tackle which is usually a mark of good cover 2 corners. And he’s too handy in man coverage down the field which usually isn’t an issue when you’re playing with eyes on the QB. Sauce isn’t a very good tackler but I think he might be a good cover 2 corner outside of that. He’s so long that he can get under those corner routes QB try to fit in between the safeties. Cover 2 might be the scheme we should be playing. Pretty tired of the press man bullshit. The horses we have aren’t playing well in the scheme and you really need heavy pressure up front or teams are just gonna crossing route you to death (which is what’s been happening). Hopefully the coaching staff that makes millions more than all of us can try something new.
Sauce is not the best corner in the game. At times he plays like it, I would like to see more consistency. He is a very good, unique corner though. I threw in Justin Fields cause you've been jerking off to him for years. starting to think you just dont know the game well
I would expect our coaches to assess player talents and then create, implement, and coach a scheme that maximizes those talents and hides flaws as much as possible. If the defense we are watching is that, then either our talent is REALLY bottom 3 in the league or our defensive coaches suck. In truth it’s always somewhere in the middle, but I’ve seen many of these players do better than they are doing…I think right now coaching on D is a HUGE weakness and needs to improve. With better coaching, this team is not 0-4
Its a big change going from a zone coverage team to running the most man in the league overnight. We are seeing growing pains big time
Ahmad and Stephens were both top 5 in forcing tight window rate in 2024. They are 2 of the most stickiest CB in the league. The issue is that they do not have great ball skills; Stephens being way worse than Ahmad in that area. I don’t think that’s what you want in Cover 2 CBs. I think they are casted correctly but their press coverage needs to be paired with pressure up front.
Gardner was a 2x All-Pro in cover 3 so he’s essentially only played zone his entire career. He’s also not really getting targeted a ton of beaten a lot so he’s not the issue. The issue is the other 4 guys we have trying to cover everyone else. Stephens, MC2, and both safeties can’t cover a lick this year regardless of whatever your sticky rate in 2024 stat is for Stephens. Gardner could adapt back to a zone scheme whether it’s cover 3 or cover 2. But the defense clearly isn’t working well with the press man Glenn & Wilks are desperate to make a thing here. Press man coverage generally isn’t even a defense that teams lead with anymore anyways. The league flags coverage guys too much these days. And when teams use it, they blitz. We’re playing press man coverage with a 4-man rush.
I dont understand the "ice" routine but I also haven't understood a lot of what you've been trying to say this morning.
to be fair JV they are still running zone, even at the highest man coverage rate in the league we still run zone the majority of the time. That’s how much the game has changed even from the Rex Ryan days
Good summary. This is the thing that's been most maddening about this team over the last decade - that we don't learn the right lessons from failure. We constantly over-correct on past mistakes because our owner doesn't view things in a nuanced way. Just to add one more thing - this all stems from our success during the Rex years. Woody has been trying to recreate those teams because it's the only real success he's known as our owner and he doesn't know enough about football to think about it independently. The only thing he knows how to do is attempt to copy the most recent example of success we've had.
We all knew Revis was great at the time but I gain even more appreciation for him as the years go by. It's rare to see a corner as complete as he was. Best cover guy in the league, good tackler, highly physical at the LoS, good ball skills. He was a unicorn.
Agreed…I think Woody has zero knowledge of the game…I hate our owner…I don’t know him as a person so can’t say anything about him personally but as an owner of the team I have loved for almost 50 years now, I hate that he’s the one in charge. He knows nothing about the game. And you know what, the real issue, and the worst part is, he knows nothing about people and leadership. It’s like any CEO of any company, I think knowing people is just as important as knowing the product. The CEO doesn’t necessarily need to know all the details about how to build the product, but he has to know enough to be able to put the right leaders in the right seats. The owner doesn’t necessarily need to know every nuance of football, but he needs to know enough to find the right GM, HC, Football Ops exec, etc. He needs to know enough to call bullshit when they come to him with excuses. And most of all, he needs to know enough to know himself and that he doesn’t know everything. And this is where he’s failed EVERY SINGLE FUCKING TIME. He has always hired the wrong GM and the wrong HC. There is a reason why we have sucked for most of his tenure. The only success we had was early on when he rode the coattails of what Parcells had built, and when Parcells’ handpicked successor at GM (Tanny) chose to hire Rex. That soon broke down, and our idiot owner has fucked up literally every single hire since. This fucking mess sits right at Woody’s feet. And the sad thing is that we as fans can’t do a single damn thing about it other than trying to embarrass him like the Fire Idzik banner (so well deserved) or just boycott the games, which is hard for fans to do. So we are left with nothing but plain hope that Woody will somehow luck into a right decision next time. That’s it. Hasn’t happened in 20 fucking years but that’s all we have.
I’m not going to make the tackling a generation thing because Surtain is great tackler and Stingley is average to good.. The soft tackling is a specific Ahmad problem.
They let him get away with arm contact in year 1 so he seemed all-pro--now they're calling everything.
One issue with Sauce is that his height makes it unlikely he'll ever be a great tackler. He's just too lanky. He can't gain weight either because that would hurt his quickness and coverage skills. So we'll have to take the good with the bad with him.
Fair but the same token one would also think his lengthy frame and prior history of playing WR at a young age would make him more likely f a ball hawk but Richard Sherman he is not.
This is a good one here: https://x.com/JetCastPod/status/1973082171477742015 Identical situation but in reverse, both should be no calls, both went against us.
