After 5 games we have seen us play one of the best first half's in football to give up 30+ in the second. There has been bitching about our run D, our Pass D, and our Defenseive coaching. That said, stats wise we have put up some very impressive numbers. 69.0 Rushing yards agains per game good for #3 in the NFL. 18 sacks tied or 2nd, 8 Forced fumbles tied for 1st, 3 defensive TD's tied for first, 306 total yards comes in at 11th. Then the bad. 237.0 Passing yards for a lowly 28th, 26.0 points allowed for 25th, 5 picks comes in at 17th in the league. From the looks of the numbers alone I would say we have been great against the run. Hand in hand with that we have suffered against the pass because teams are forced to throw on us. Forcing teams to throw puts up the chances to get those sacks and our Dline and line backers are taking full advantage. Yet despite the additional pressure our secondary is getting picked apart for a good chunk sof yardage. So just how good are we? We seem to have the talent to be a top D and have shown flashes as such, but seem to need to make some adjustments. Were do we begin to fix the remaining problems? Is there a way in season or do we need to add aditional talent through the draft?
Our D rankings may be skewed a bit because of the BYE week... Nevertheless it's clear the run D is legit, and the passrush has been consistent judging by week-to-week comparison. Pass D is poor but more specifically pass D on 3rd down is HORRIBLE. I've missed most games this season but have read multiple posts regarding a 3-lineman rush on 3rd downs... Maybe we should consider a Thomas/Gholston-Coleman-Mosley-Ellis/Bowens 4-man rush on 3rd down?? If 3rd down stops increase the entire course of the games will be shifted in our favor (obviously).
We did use Pace-Ellis-Mosley on a few of the three man rush fronts. They did a good job at applying pressure for only 3 comming. I liked that front alot.
We seem to get burnt over the middle a lot in that 7 to 12 yard area where a linebacker is supposed to have responsibility.
we are really good against the run, the stats just back up what I see when I watch the game. we are forcing teams to pass, and they are having some success against us. This is far different than in past years where teams good run it all day on us, so our pass D was statistically good
We won't know how good the D really is until we play Denver in a couple weeks, they are the last of the good offenses we play this year.
We are great against the run. Our pass rush is awesome at times, but seems to be irrelevant in some key situations (playcalling sometimes is at fault but not always). Our pass D is good when we face teams with only 1 good receiver. The problem is when a team has multiple threats at WR, as most teams do, we give up lots of passing yards. i think we will continue to improve over the season, barring any serious injuries (Jenkins, Pace, Thomas, Revis etc)
amazed this much complaint about d after yesterdays game, we gave up one offensive TD and that one we blew up the pass on 4th down and it should not have counted holding them to zero points. Those are two past and present probowl recievers we shut down yesterday
The encouraging sign about the D is they are flourishing at the two most important facets of having a great D, stopping the running game and rushing the passer. They need to do a better job of getting off the field on third and longs. As Poteat starts playing more and Coleman starts playing less, they should improve in that area. Coleman is clearly the weak link when he is on the field.
Can't agree more about Coleman. Poteat or even Barrett would be a better option. He is the weakest link in the secondary at thihs point IMO. Who is playing Linebacker in the nickle/dime packages? We seem to give up a lot of underneath passing yardage.
I think our biggest problem with our defense right now is covering the slot receives/slants over the middle. Drew Coleman simply can't play the position and it shows. If you remember Welker in the Patriots game, a lot of those crossing patterns early on against the Chargers and even the Penny passes in game 1, we've either got to drop linebackers deeper or try something different at nickle corner.
I was thinking the same thing, but then thought Buffalo could be a good challenge as well so long as Edwards is playing.
We did much better this week on third down, only allowing cincy 5 first downs on 15 tries (33%). On the other hand they were 2 for 2 on fourth down. Compare that with our stats for the rest of the games allowing 23 first downs on 51 tries (51%). It was very encouraging that the D held up even with the 2 INTs from Favre. This was the first week that the Jets won the time of possession battle, holding on to the ball for 35:18. I'm a believer at this point that Coleman is the weak link. I'd love to see a decent cover linebacker as well. I'm just not seeing that right now. I'm trying to come up with something useful to say about how our defense is playing, hopefully supported by some meaningful numbers. I'll probably fail but we'll see.
I wouldn't say anything good or bad about the D based on the game against the Bengals. They obviously had a lot of problems that had nothing to do with our D.
