I’m Beginning to Feel Sorry for Joseph

[Harry]

He’s been given virtually nothing with which to work. He’s tried every player and no one can cover a tight end. He’s got one pass rusher and Joseph’s schemes have helped C.J. to a career best start. The others create little pressure. VJ has 1 MLB, who’s only good against the run. None of his safeties can read the QB to set up an interception. The CBs are so far behind out of the WR’s break they’re no threat to intercept. In fact they can’t cover man-to-man, so blitzing is a huge risk. He doesn’t have a DT who can collapse the pocket. What’s Joseph supposed to do?

 

[Cardiac]

I feel you Harry. What's up with Patrick ( used to be good) Peterson? Is he missing his PED's or is he still getting up to speed after being off for 6 weeks?

VJ may or may not be a good DC but we can't draw a good conclusion based on this season. I see some great stuff at times and then see stuff that makes me scream.

 

[Timm Rosenbach]

They got the goal line stand and the boy genius called a timeout. No issues with VJ

 

[GoldGloveschmidt]

It's incredible that anybody would make excuses for Vance Joseph.

He is the Mike McCoy of our defense.

He is forcing players into his bad scheme instead of adapting to them.

Our players absolutely can not play zone defense. As a coach he should have realized that by now and adjusted. Instead he continues to run the terrible zones which allow easy catches all day with nobody within 5 yards.

Look at the game clinching play, zone defense with nobody within 5 yards of the TE.

With man coverage he would have been tackled short and we would have a chance to win.

 

[Syracusecards]

What frustrates me to no end is there is virtually NO blitzing the A-gap. Every quarterbacks weakness is seeing a defender coming direct at him. Brady crumbles to the ground if there’s pressure up the middle. the only player in the middle is Corey peters and he is getting no pressure. Both of the middle linebackers are too slow or inept to read a play and intercept or even tip a pass. Even if the Blitzer doesn’t get there, it disrupts the quarterback and can lead to panic. Watching iur defense sometimes it’s like watching a prevent defense

 

[cardsfanmd]

They got the goal line stand and the boy genius called a timeout. No issues with VJ

Joseph was screaming for that timeout. Kliff just called if for him because he’s the HC.

 

[GatorAZ]

We had the #30 ranked opposing QB rating behind Atlanta and Miami. I’m guessing it’ll be #32 tomorrow.

 

[Buckybird]

Harry I agree, but to an extent.

I still say Joseph is still a product of his own failures. Still too many easy throws, 70+ yard drives, time consuming drives & 3rd & long conversions.

Our defense was allowing 72% completions for the season & today it was 76%, so it went up. That completion % for the season is atrocious & all of the above doesn’t lead to many wins. Totally unacceptable!

Piss poor defense by the players & poor schemes by VJ. He’s got to be fired after the season

 

[Buckybird]

Joseph was screaming for that timeout. Kliff just called if for him because he’s the HC.

Not true. It was on Kliff.

His poor game & clock management was one of my big hates of his coming into the job. It was poor at Tech.

I also think he mismanaged his timeouts around the 4 min mark & also the poor challenge loss of a TO.

 

[SoCal Cardfan]

I know that VJ has little to work with talent wise... But his play calling has me scratching my head dozens of times a game.

Hard to get an accurate read on it I guess, maybe he's dialing up the right play, but no one knows where the hell they are supposed to be?

Hard to imagine that he has plays drawn up... that leave play makers completely unaccounted for, but that's what I see several times every game.

 

[dscher]

Too easy to blame players in this league... The game is like a game of chess.. he gets checkmated most of the time as a coordinator. He's a stand up kinda guy and I think he would even admit that so far. This team is lacking talent..but his playcalling on that side of the ball leaves a Clancy pendergast kinda feel.

 

[Cardsfaninlouky]

It's incredible that anybody would make excuses for Vance Joseph.

He is the Mike McCoy of our defense.

He is forcing players into his bad scheme instead of adapting to them.

Our players absolutely can not play zone defense. As a coach he should have realized that by now and adjusted. Instead he continues to run the terrible zones which allow easy catches all day with nobody within 5 yards.

Look at the game clinching play, zone defense with nobody within 5 yards of the TE.

With man coverage he would have been tackled short and we would have a chance to win.

Man coverage on that play & brought pressure. He seems to not know when to bring it, but that last play was definitely one while playing man.

 

[Harry]

It's incredible that anybody would make excuses for Vance Joseph.

He is the Mike McCoy of our defense.

He is forcing players into his bad scheme instead of adapting to them.

Our players absolutely can not play zone defense. As a coach he should have realized that by now and adjusted. Instead he continues to run the terrible zones which allow easy catches all day with nobody within 5 yards.

Look at the game clinching play, zone defense with nobody within 5 yards of the TE.

With man coverage he would have been tackled short and we would have a chance to win.

Sadly this just reflects how bad the personnel is. The guy at the bottom of the zone is supposed to know where the first down line is and move to protect his area. He gave it that statue look. The zone is an area, not a spot. When someone moves into his area he’s got to respond. If he were playing man the guy would have bumped him, slanted in and got the first. Bad play is bad play despite the scheme.

 

[az jam]

We need to address the defense big time in the off season. I'm not for firing any of the coaches. We are in a rebuild mode with a rookie qb and IMO playing so much better than last year.

 

[AZCB34]

Not true. It was on Kliff.

His poor game & clock management was one of my big hates of his coming into the job. It was poor at Tech.

I also think he mismanaged his timeouts around the 4 min mark & also the poor challenge loss of a TO.

Kliff doesn't know enough about what is going on with the defense to call the timeout on his own in that spot. Someone was in his ear telling him to call that timeout.

 

[Reddog]

Harry, What would your priorities be for this D in the off-season? Which positions would you start with in FA?

 

[Crimson Warrior]

Harry I agree, but to an extent.

I still say Joseph is still a product of his own failures. Still too many easy throws, 70+ yard drives, time consuming drives & 3rd & long conversions.

Our defense was allowing 72% completions for the season & today it was 76%, so it went up. That completion % for the season is atrocious & all of the above doesn’t lead to many wins. Totally unacceptable!

Piss poor defense by the players & poor schemes by VJ. He’s got to be fired after the season

I don't know Bucky. Can you really keep turning over DCs every year and expect to be successful? Are we 100% sure that, if there was an average amount of talent on the defense, we would still fail because of Joseph's scheme?

What about how hard guys like Murphy and Hicks and Baker are playing for him? We've got guys rallying to the ball, and that means something to me.

This upcoming offseason, I'm advocating putting 75% of our FA and draft capital into the defense (and 25% to continue re-tooling the offense), and I'd like to see what VJ could do with more talent, and another full offseason to implement his philosophy and scheme. But, I won't belabor the point beyond this, and I'll give you the last word if you'd like it sir.

 

[Chopper0080]

Harry, What would your priorities be for this D in the off-season? Which positions would you start with in FA?

I'm not Harry, but you need

a DE generate interior pressure.

You need two OLBs who can rotate and generate a pass rush from the other OLB spot.

You need a more athletic version of Joe Walker.

We need more from the other S position. (either the Thompsons develop or we sign someone)

 

[MadCardDisease]

Joseph is in between a rock and a hard place. Several things conspired against him early on that were not his fault. I put the failings of this defense mostly on Keim.

1. $35M of dead money for past mistakes put the Cardinals in a bad spot with little flexibility to bring in help.
2. Trying to find your QB of the future was the cause of most of that dead money and I think we finally did this year so I'm OK with some of it. However a lot of that dead money was from just bad personnel decisions in general. It also meant that draft picks that could have been used on the defense went into the QBOTF search.
3. I was not excited about picking up Swearinger off waivers last season. I felt he was a relic and to rely on him as a starter would be a mistake. My fears were realized and he was cut fairly quickly.
4. I felt that Darius Philon was one of the best pick ups of the offseason. Losing him to the Strip Club incident was ridiculous on Philon's part and really hurt the Cardinals on the DL.
5. Thinking that Nkemdiche could actually earn a spot on this team was another major failing by Keim. I get that they didn't have much money to work with but the writing was on the wall for this bust years ago. I would have cut him after last season.
6. Losing Zack Allen was another blow to an already thin DL.
7. Losing Alford to a broken leg before the season started really put the Defensive backfield in a bind especially with PP 6 game suspension.

Those are the biggies that Joseph has had to deal with. The Cardinals rightly spent a bunch of capital trying to surround Murray with as much talent as possible. I get that, but man did the Cards leave the cupboard bare for Joseph on defense.

 

[Arz101]

To an extent, I agree with Harry.

VJ mostly stopped the vaunted 9ers running game. Credit where due. Passing game continues to be a problem. It was especially bad with their top player in the secondary, that is P2, getting beat all day long. LBers are slow as hell doesn't help. DL cannot get there before secondary is beat.

Keim is the #1 reason for this defensive failures. Since the NFC Championship game this defense, for the most part, is trash when the game matters.

VJ also needs to show, like Kingsbury, he can scheme something out of the ordinary talent on his defense. VJ gets another 7 weeks to prove it.

 

[GatorAZ]

I was off as soon as he forced arguably the most accurate short/intermediate passer all time beat them underneath with a busted thumb.

 

[cardpa]

To an extent, I agree with Harry.

VJ mostly stopped the vaunted 9ers running game. Credit where due. Passing game continues to be a problem. It was especially bad with their top player in the secondary, that is P2, getting beat all day long. LBers are slow as hell doesn't help. DL cannot get there before secondary is beat.

Keim is the #1 reason for this defensive failures. Since the NFC Championship game this defense, for the most part, is trash when the game matters.

VJ also needs to show, like Kingsbury, he can scheme something out of the ordinary talent on his defense. VJ gets another 7 weeks to prove it.

I think Joseph was intent on stopping the run game for the Niners and did so for the most part and forced Garrapolo to beat us with the pass and Garrapolo did so. Did you noticed that even when the Cardinal defense stuffed the run on first down the Niners were still running the ball on either 2nd or 3rd down and still converting. That is probably because Joseph then went to a more pass protective scheme on the 2nd and 3rd and long downs only to have the Niners gash the defense with some runs on those downs producing more manageable 3rd downs. If the defense played it straight up on first down I imagine the run game for the Niners would have been a lot more effective and resulted in a longer night for the defense.

 

[bojack]

Anyone have any thoughts on why PP was not tasked to shadow Sanders in man more? I know Vance likes zone but doesn't prohibit a hybrid where you let PP play man on Sanders and use more nickel or cover 1.

 

[Chopper0080]

I was off as soon as he forced arguably the most accurate short/intermediate passer all time beat them underneath with a busted thumb.

This is also where I struggle with Joseph. It isn't as much about overall scheme, as it is that I don't really agree with how he decides to attack the opposing team.

 

[Chopper0080]

Anyone have any thoughts on why PP was not tasked to shadow Sanders in man more? I know Vance likes zone but doesn't prohibit a hybrid where you let PP play man on Sanders and use more nickel or cover 1.

Sanders is the type of WR that Peterson consistently struggles against in his career. Smaller, precise route runner who runs patterns both outside and in the slot. I actually expected the Cardinals to lock Murphy up on Sanders as he seems to be better suited for that.