Horton will capitalize on Wilson's blitzing prowess---he will be moved around and sent into the backfield from a variety of different angles---with a lot of zone and combo zone/man coverages behind.
Wilson is still the most explosive pass rusher on the roster.
Hey Mitch man, how are you doing?
Totally agree with you, as always. Polamalu is not that special either in coverage. He is something special as the total package, as DB, LB, passrusher, everything - a football player.
Wilson is also a football player, and if there was a room for those in Lebeau's scheme, there should be here as well. I doubt Peterson would do well instead of Polamalu, and not because of lack of coverage skills.
Every single mistake Adrian did, was due to man to man coverage assignments. I don't remember him messing it up in zone coverage that bad, in the box, backfield, or tackling. He is the best football player we have on defense. By far.
However, he suits the zone defense. Every single mistake was due to him being asked to man cover a TE. He can't do it, and neither can Polamalu to be honest, you just don't see it exposed cause he isn't asked to do that, they run exclusively complicated zones, they know when to help each other to perfection. Anybody thinks Polamalu would have shut down Vernon Davis 1 on 1 and with no help from anywhere? The calls were awful, Davis (Billy) is an awful football mind, and the scheme was just as awful as his calls. And honestly, much of this indicates that Whisenhunt is just as bad as understanding defense. He is simply not making an unified philosophy on the defense, he keeps failing at that.
We have quiet many great football players on the defensive side of the roster, let me write down what i think:
Adrian Wilson: Zone coverage only, Tampa-2 , but much more so the Cover 3 in the box and all over underneath.
DRC : Amazing man to man corner ability skills. Fits nothing else.
Dockett: Plays only 3 technique. Only a 4-3 defense can be dominant with him as tackle. Only, and i mean only, a 3-tech. Fits Tampa-2 by far the most, but can also be effective in 4-3 cover 3 base.
Peterson: From college tapes - Only man to man, confused playing zones, done it few times only and didn't look good. Huge gamble to trust in zones at this point.
Washington - Can play zones and man but only in 4-3 he can be dominant. Struggles alot with lineman and doesn't fit 3-4 at all. Would be good in Cover 3 zone base, and would absolutely dominate in Tampa-2.
The other players on the defensive side can easy be adjusted to any style of football - whether that is a four or three man front on the front 7, or a man to man or zone scheme on the second level. But these 5 players, half of our starters, are only fitting one style and they don't have that scheme flexibility.
The key to success is getting a unified philosophy for the players i listed above. They all require a single scheme to shine and really help to make a defense dominant. You can play man to man and get amazing coverage with our corners. But you will be burned for TD when you are forced to put Wilson in man to man on a TE two or three times per game, comes in blitzing situations. It happens that you get forced to do that.
You can put Dockett at 5 tech and let him play there like at 3 tech, the only thing he knows. But there are only 3 lineman and the LB's will have a hard time on running downs. They will run into offensive lineman more often. Hayes covered up much of that, you have never seen a LB in his prime being so great at shedding offensive lineman. But he is not here anymore, we now have an undersized LB that can't handle pulling lineman. Again, lack of unified philosophy.
You can play zones and move Wilson all over the place and he will look like Polamalu much of the time. But DRC and Peterson are going to make many stupid reads and failing executing the complicated pattern reading system.
All this means that Horton needs to adjust much more. And the more you nee to adjust, the harder it gets to understand what's going on and what to call, when.
The hardest thing for building a great defense is matching all the players skills so they fit the scheme in a way that makes the best defense. As Dolphins long time ago have shown and several other teams, you can have a group of no names out there, but if they fit the scheme and each other and you get good play calling, you can still dominate.
I don't know how Horton will handle all this, but i hope he is really smart and has learned alot, it won't be so easy as on a team where all the players skill match the scheme and where chemistry and trust is so good.
The best teams in the league are those that believe and stay within their scheme and philosophy. Colts always draft players that fit the Tampa-2, undersized DE's. Steelers always draft lineman with two gap potential and LB's that know how to passrush. Just some examples.
Cardinals are going in two opposite directions. All over the place. I hate that.
We draft a man coverage CB just after our new defensive coach has stated he will only run zones. We have a whole O-Line that is better suited to run the ball, yet we throw the football so much. Etc. etc. That's what my biggest problem is. We have plenty of talent, but we need to bring all that together and make it work.
, this is the most talent we've had in the secondary in a long time so Horton should be able to work a lot of different things with them.
