Cotchery is arguable, he has made some seriously clutch plays for us the past few years... but I don't see it. Welker is a frigging slot receiver that demands coverage from the best CB on every team he plays against. Revis was on him almost the entire game, and got beat more than I am comfortable seeing. He actually opens things up for a wideout split to the outside. That's almost unheard of. The effect he has on that Pats offense made teams change the way they were used to gameplanning other teams' offenses. Don't get me wrong, I love Cotchery, but if it is a choice between having Welker wreaking havoc in the D-midfield, demanding a top corner covering him to open up coverage for a split receiver - and having Cotch drawing a top corner with someone like Stuckey in the slot - I choose the former. I'm not saying I don't like our current offensive setup. With Keller lining up in the slot, we have a very good potential mismatch in almost every game and I think we're going to be able to exploit that a lot in the future, especially in the playoffs (god willing). But Welker is simply that good.
No, he doesn't, and that is the sad fact of Randy Moss. As a Packer fan you should know that, too. I've seen Randy Moss break huge gains off slants and ins and posts, he just has to make the effort to break the jam at the line and run a sharp route. We all saw him man-handle Ty Law in that over-replayed run play in the 1st quarter Thursday night. He's wiry and tall, but he's also very deceptively strong. Randy Moss doesn't NEED a QB that can throw deep. But that's what he WANTS. He doesn't WANT to have to break jams at the line. He wants to hand-fight and shrug a guy and then use the speed to get deep past his man, because he spends less effort in a jump ball because he is so tall and has such great hands. And he doesn't have to worry about getting creamed in the D-midfield by a safety when he's running a go-route, either. Randy doesn't want to get hurt for a scrub like Matt Cassel, that is plain. And sad.
IMO, the prevent defense is almost a free-pass to the red zone. It should never be used if the opposition is within 3 points of the lead. The prevent works best when the opposition must score a TD to take the lead and if a team does go prevent they have to incorporate disguised blitz packages to be successful. I am not really a big fan of it because I have seen it cost us dearly over the years.
No, I agree with you there. That's what I meant actually. He's definitely got the skills to do the slants, etc. but is NOT going to put the effort in an entire season no matter what (which is why I called it a "need" for him to have a deep-threat QB).
In Moss's defense, Cassel's deep ball is just awful. You haven't heard the last of Moss this season. He'll have games where he'll put up 100 yards and a touchdown again.
A prevent Defense is a defense designed to prevent you from winning! To lay back and let Qb's chew up large amt's of yards while using minimal time on the clock. It was designed to let Great or Good Qb's to pick apart and make 20 pt leads go away. It was designed to get coaches fired.
Some nice posts here, but I believe the origin of the term was to prevent plays that picked up huge yardage, using the clock as the ally of the D. Of course...
