i think we've seen that for the most part rex will field a competitive d. even if it regresses a bit, it's still going to be pretty good. we just need an offense.
My concern is that if you look at the trend, our D has progressively gotten worse from 1st, to 3rd, to 5th, and now at 10th. I'm not really sure of the cause of our regression since Rex's first year, but I get the feeling that other teams are catching on to Rex's scheme. Combine this with the loss of a few coaches and defensive assistants, I don't think it's unreasonable to think that we could continue to drop in the rankings considering the trend.
Rex schemes aren't surprising the league as much as before. However, there's an even more obvious problem imho. The level of play he can get out of his LB core has gone down every season. Last season his LB core was really slooooow.
If our new GM uses the entire draft too bolster our inept offense, where does that leave our defense? Can we field a reasonable defense with JUST the players we have, minus the ones getting whacked? Here's how it may look: DE: Wilkerson, Couples. no bad. not bad at all. NT: Po'uha out, Kendrick Ellis & Damon Harrison in. DT: Big Mike Divito. gotta keep him. OLB: Bryan Thomas out, Garrett McIntyre in. slight drop in run support. WLB: Bart out, Demario Davis in. improvement. MLB: David Harris, Nick Bellore OLB: Calvin Pace out, Ricky Sapp in. ehh. it might work. CB: Revis CB: Cromartie out, Kyle Wilson in CB: Ellis Lankster CB: Aaron Berry, Darrin Walls S: LaRlon Landry out, Josh Bush in S: Yeremiah Bell, try to keep him S: Eric Smith out, Antonio Allen in A lot of these 'new players' are 2nd/3rd year guys who got a lot of extra play time last year with Revis and Po'uha out and Bart slower than molasses. I could live with that line up for a year as long was we use some last round pics for a few rookie back ups.
Our defensive ranking has slipped each year for two main reasons: 1) Our linebackers have gotten older and slower each year. I hate to think how bad we would have been if our safties hadn't been dramatically improved this year to help them out. If Revis hadn't been hurt, I suspect Landry/Bell would have been able to play an even bigger part in run support. 2) Our offense used to be able to hold on to the ball for a few minutes. That is no longer the case. I've often been impressed with the defensive adjustments we make. In 08/09 it seemed like our D controlled everything after halftime. Since then, however, as our ability to avoid the 3-and-out has diminished, (and as our LBs have aged) we seem to be getting worn out by the end of the 3rd quarter.
I think our best bet is to grab a pass rushing OLB with our first pick, then go all O. I'm really hoping we trade down though....we really could use a lot of young, cheap talent on all sides of the ball.
