What the hell happened here? Alim McNeill came back and no one in the front seven got injured.
Stopping the run was as much a part of our identity as leaning on the run on offense. I know there’s lots of things to get stuck into with what went wrong this season, but I think this is a pretty major one. 141 yards per game is worse than the 2021 defense was giving up.
Teams ran the ball on us like it was nothing. That’s unacceptable.
Good point on Arnold.
I think Amik as an outside CB was exposed the longer he had do it.
I wonder if DJ Reed wasn’t a 100% on the hamstring issue after coming back.
In 2021 when we had bums and scrubs on defense they averaged 135 yards per game. It’s hard to believe with all the talent there is at DT and LB that just missing safetys is what makes us worse than 2021.
And if the safetys are so important, why was the safety depth in the initial 53 (50) man roster composed of Branch, Joseph and Daniel Thomas and that’s it?! That bothered me all through camp, no effort was made to build depth at that position.
With the front seven fully available giving up that many rush yards is inexcusable.
Being unable to adjust the scheme to compensate for injury weaknesses is inexcusable.
Having zero depth for a key position is inexcusable.
Branch is so good in the box and finiding the holes to plug up for runners, and Kerby is solid too when needed
its very stark, but when you lose both an all=pro safety, and and a pro bowl safety, along with TA, who was really good in Run Defense this year, and our DLine regressing… that stacks up.
Scheme was not adjusted to deal with our losses (on Shep)
Dline Regressed (on group blame on Shep, Kacy and the players themselves)
Injuries to our safeties and TA (Strength and Conditioning, Coaching staff for playing both safeties when they were injured to hell. Honestly, might be the thing im most mad at Dan at is letting kerby play that Chiefs game, he absolutely should not have played that game)
I thought the adjustment after both starting safeties were lost was for the linebackers to try to help cover for that loss. Resulting linebackers being late to fill the gaps or completely out of position.
Shepp. And fans yelling to change his scheme. Branch hurt. But Branch isn’t the reason it’s good or bad.
AG had the best run defense with scrubs named Benito Jones and Isiah Buggs. Without Reader, or Jack Campbell being who he is now. Without this first round stud named Tyliek.
I do think the people saying “our safeties were hurt” are looking for the easiest possible answer to help themselves cope with the reality of what we are facing. A couple facts (which I know won’t be welcomed):
The stats the OP shared are starting in week 9. BB was hurt in week 14. So he played more than half the games during the stretch the OP is mentioning. This whole “we were missing BB” excuse isn’t actually based in reality. He was there and playing during most of this statistical downfall.
We play with more 3 LB sets than most teams in the NFL, if not all of them.
We play with a heavy DL - guys like Reader, Tyliek, Lopez, McNeil, etc get a ton of snaps.
Our front 7 has been mostly healthy this season, if not potentially one of the healthiest in the league really if you look around. So it’s not due to injury.
Kerby played the first 6 games of the season, so he was involved in the defense before the bye week change. I guess you can say he was potentially responsible for the drop off if you want to feel good about things. Two things to consider thoughL
Kerby had 14 tackles in 6 games. You are free to think his 1.25 tackles per game is the difference in our run defense being good vs terrible, but I personally do not.
Why are we playing so many 3 LB sets and so many heavy DLmen if we are relying on our safeties to make so many tackles (PS - we aren’t).
It feel pretty obvious, if someone chooses to see it, that as the season went on other team’s OC’s figured out ways to attack Shep’s scheme and as a rookie DC and playcaller, he didn’t have much of a response. Doesn’t mean he can’t get better with an offseason of learning and some additional coaching support - but if we are going to keep him then he needs some assistance and growth as a coordinator. The personnel was largely there to be a good run stopping defense. The pass defense is another story with all the secondary injuries, but the run D should not have fallen off like this.
Right on.. Safeties have nothing to do with the DL getting moved backwards routinely… It’s more scheme and execution than talent IMO. The same guys that were here last year didn’t suddenly forget how to play the run. Like you mentioned, heavy set, with 3 LBers on the field 80+% of the time, they should be much better against the run. I think it’s coaching, I think AG along with Ben were very detail oriented and I this team has become undisciplined under the new coaches. It’s the only thing I can attribute to the mental lapses that’s plagued this team all season… Dropped passes… Missed blocks… Wrong run fits… It’s a long list of mishaps that continued to happen regardless of opponent or player