Shenanigans! Tony Dungy is a great defensive coach. His D in Indy is consistently not good, if not bad. I don't like Bob Sutton as our DC. Not one bit. He lacks cahones. Someone apparently lent him a pair late last season so figured out what a blitz is, but he's no Dick LeBeau, not by a fricking long shot. If there is a good, big NT to draft, I think that we would then have an amazing defensive line with DRob at DE after proving that he was servicable at NT (Reverse-Wilkfork style) and with Coleman and Ellis on top of DRob for rotation, the wall would be solid. I originally didn't like trading up at all, but the pickups of Revis and Harris in this past draft seem huge to me, and the second that we have a ballsey DC, we should be fine. Look at the Saints! Sean Peyton lost his balls in the offseason and their offense has taken a nosedive this season. Hopefully he finds them again for tonight's game, because they'll be screwed without that great, aggressive playcalling that worked so well last season, as they have been for two weeks straight.
I watch the DL play very specifically and I do not think that D-Rob is the problem totally, at least not in the way people seem to think. There are two problems the way I see it: One: There is not a good coordination between NT and the DEs in terms of the amount of poush they get off the LOS. A "traditional" nose tackle basically holds the LOS gets the double team and allows the speed of the LBers to make plays in the gaps. D-Rob does not have the size to basically just stand up and hold the LOS. So he drives and gets penetration. He is able to do this AND get the double team block. But the DEs are not getting the same penetration play after play as DROB which creates a big gap or lane for the opposing RB. When the LBers fail to cover that gap, the RB gets 5 yards deep into the Jets defense before gettinfg touched. The DEs need to play more consistently and the LBers need to hit the gaps better. Two: tackling. We just are not tackling well. The LBers need to make tackles at the point of attack. The DEs need to shed their blocks and make plays. And yes, when one of D-Robs double gets onto a LBer, he needs to shed his remianing block and make the tackle and he is not doing that often enough. Last year, at the end we were much more aggressive which sysnched up the line so those gaps were not as big and we started tackling better. We need to do the same thing this year. Our personnel is OK. We need to wrokd better as a team and really tackle better. We can do this and I think we will. Blaming D-Rob for everything is easy but not true at all.
Bingo. I actually checked my monitor after reading this post--I figured there must be something wrong with my computer if I was reading a logical post about our defense.
If Tony Dungy's team spent any money on defense (outside of Freeney) you would have a point. Dungy consistently replaces starting linebackers and cornerbacks each year. Furthermore, the Colts defense is statistically bad, but perfect for the team. The defense is built assuming the offense will score points and will be playing with the lead a large percentage of the time. Having the lead the other team will be forced to throw more in the 2nd half which is where having the Cover 2helps as they typically won't give up the big play. Specifically, you have guys like Freeney and Mathis that are purely there to rush the passer and hopefully will slow down the running game. The Colts won't ever be a team to shutdown another team's running game because, as long as Peyton is there, they don't have to be.
