Why everyone is overreacting to the defense

[Arizona's Finest]

So what would have been your gameplan if you were playing the Vince Young led Titans? Keep him in the pocket, keep him from big plays on the ground (they ran the option against Houston the week before with success) and make him beat you passing, right?

Right?

So I watched that whole game. Did VY even pick up a first down on the ground? Did anyone see him throwing as well as he did. I mean what did he have like 385 yards?

Sure the 99 yeard drive stung. But lets give credit where credit is due. Young beat us, plain and simple. It was an singularly impressive performance and I think even the Cardinals were shocked he was making plays through the air like that.

As a DC you game plan and hope your players execute. And for the most part the did, save the last drive and Chris Johnson's big run. But lets give credit to those two players for making things happen.

I don't think Minnesota or especially New Orleans go into Tennessee and win that game without their QB. I really don't.

That loss stung but everyone getting all crazy is at a loss of perspective. We are two games up and as long as we handle a medicore SF team on Monday night we will be okay (and believe me when I say in terms of matchup for us, Alex Smith playing is the best thing that could happen for us).

And if we get swept by SF then we are not Super Bowl contenders anyway. Despite yesterday they, just ain't that good.

So worry about Warner's health, but get over this loss. That was a grown up team yesterday and other then the final drive, the team showed me alot.

 

[Brighteyes]

It was a disappointing loss, to be sure.

BUT it was a hell of a game! With Warner out, and some of the concerns over Lienart, I admit I was fearful they'd play poorly. They played great.

Do I want them to win every game? Of course. But for heaven's sake, three years ago I'd have been thrilled to see them play that well.

 

[Evil Ash]

500 yards is unacceptable period. You can't give up that much on defense and expect to win. Its not just this game but there have been trends that have been showing up lately with this defense that quite frankly scare the crap out of me for the future.

- Our pass rush is piss poor
- Our secondary seems to forget the cover the middle of the field
- Missed tackles galore
- Missed gap assignments
- Lack of containment

The last few things I mentioned weren't really a factor for this game but they have been a factor lately. As of now we are relying too heavily on our offense and have to light up the scoreboard in order to beat good teams. That's not good.

We need to improve in these areas in a hurry if we want to be a serious contender. There are plenty of things to be concerned about.

 

[moklerman]

Here's a nugget from the Yahoo Sports recap of the game:

Britt had 128 yards receiving, giving the franchise a 300-yard passer, 100-yard rusher and 100-yard receiver in the same game for the first time since Warren Moon, Lorenzo White and Haywood Jeffires did it for the Houston Oilers on Sept. 6, 1992

I wouldn't call that a good thing for the Cardinals defense.

 

[PACardsFan]

So what would have been your gameplan if you were playing the Vince Young led Titans? Keep him in the pocket, keep him from big plays on the ground (they ran the option against Houston the week before with success) and make him beat you passing, right?

Right?

So I watched that whole game. Did VY even pick up a first down on the ground? Did anyone see him throwing as well as he did. I mean what did he have like 385 yards?

Sure the 99 yeard drive stung. But lets give credit where credit is due. Young beat us, plain and simple. It was an singularly impressive performance and I think even the Cardinals were shocked he was making plays through the air like that.

As a DC you game plan and hope your players execute. And for the most part the did, save the last drive and Chris Johnson's big run. But lets give credit to those two players for making things happen.

I don't think Minnesota or especially New Orleans go into Tennessee and win that game without their QB. I really don't.

That loss stung but everyone getting all crazy is at a loss of perspective. We are two games up and as long as we handle a medicore SF team on Monday night we will be okay (and believe me when I say in terms of matchup for us, Alex Smith playing is the best thing that could happen for us).

And if we get swept by SF then we are not Super Bowl contenders anyway. Despite yesterday they, just ain't that good.

So worry about Warner's health, but get over this loss. That was a grown up team yesterday and other then the final drive, the team showed me alot.

Your assessment is dead on. I have to think that the Cardinals goal was to force VY to beat us with his arm. Kudos to him, he did! Take away the 85 yd run & we did a decent job of containing Johnson & VY's ability to scramble for big yards. There's a reason why Tennessee won 13 games last year. When healthy, they are a big, physical & nasty bunch. I did not expect a W yesterday & it would have been huge had we pulled it off. Let's just hope that we learned something from it. There is no team in the NFL right now that would have gone into TN yesterday & played any better than we did. My only fear right now is that we may be without Warner for a few more weeks.

 

[SoCal Cardfan]

This game is such an aberration for the Titans, VY was playing out of his mind.. How the hell do you game plan for a guy who can scramble like Vick and sling it like Montana?

I bet the fact that he was playing against Leinart put his mind back at Texas and he could play like he was in College again.. not the scary NFL.

If the light DID go on for Young and this is a glimpse of things to come.. then he will be a nightmare for D coordinators.

I still lean to him just playing out of his mind for this game.

 

[moklerman]

This could have been a very different outcome if the Cardinals had hung on to some of the potential picks but they didn't and usually haven't. I agree that corralling Young is important but not at the cost of the game. He was picking apart the defense all day.

I surely don't understand the logic in giving up 400+ yards of offense to Young. I'd much rather he broke a couple of runs and kept him at 200 or so yards like everyone else does.

I'm pretty sick of the "other than the 85 yard run" argument too. By rushing 4 and containing Young, they opened themselves up to a big play and Johnson capitalized. If they had stacked the box and been beaten by an 85 yard TD pass to Britt would we all be saying "except for that 85 yard pass" the defense played well?

The Cardinals gave up more yards to the Titans than anyone has since Warren Moon was in Houston. No way this effort can be spun as "good" or "good enough". It was pathetic.

 

[mrbyte]

its nothing to do with how many yards or first downs or containing VY.
its to do with no lead is safe in this D's hands
21 points isn't enough see the bears game or the rams game, see how we have to keep scoring to win

we couldn't get one stop in 99 yards !! just one stop to win was all we needed.
and so what if VY was playing out of his mind
what about Shaun Hill's 80 yards he marched on us to win and he wasn't playing out of his mind.

Bill Davis stated that he was going to stop the big play ...he hasn't and we cannot close a game unless we have a truck load of point in the bank.

 

[TJ]

Consider me one of the people overreacting, but whether you are the Cleveland Browns or the Indianapolis Colts, the expectations for any defense who pins the opposition at the one yard line with two minutes to go is to stop them regardless of the competition. We had three chances to turn the ball over on downs and failed.

I'm hard pressed to give kudos to the defense today after giving up 500+ yards and the embarrassing final drive, even though I regard them as a top 10 defense in the league. But we do have to move forward and focus on the Vikings. My hope is that this failed defensive stand acts as a reality check that the defense cannot keep falling asleep towards the end of games. When I was a sprinter in track, I was always taught to run through the tape at full speed and not slow down beforehand. The defense needs to take a page from that book and instill the philosophy to the rest of the season.

 

[moklerman]

Which is why I'm critical of Whis this week. You can't put that responsibility on this defense and that was his game plan. That's bad coaching in my opinion.

This(any) team should win and lose with it's strengths. Let this offense try and establish a comfortable lead and hope the defense can hold on. Purposely letting off the throttle on offense was a lose-able offense. If the Titans defense outplays the Cards offense that's one thing but this was a continuation of last week's game of field position.

It looked like a good idea at the time but this offense scares people and they WANT to keep it close until the end. Why on earth would you give the opposition exactly what they want? You just don't let a team hang around when you have the fire power to put them away.

 

[Evil Ash]

Which is why I'm critical of Whis this week. You can't put that responsibility on this defense and that was his game plan. That's bad coaching in my opinion.

This(any) team should win and lose with it's strengths. Let this offense try and establish a comfortable lead and hope the defense can hold on. Purposely letting off the throttle on offense was a lose-able offense. If the Titans defense outplays the Cards offense that's one thing but this was a continuation of last week's game of field position.

It looked like a good idea at the time but this offense scares people and they WANT to keep it close until the end. Why on earth would you give the opposition exactly what they want? You just don't let a team hang around when you have the fire power to put them away.

Leinart got maybe 25% of the snaps during practice this week. Handing him the ball and expecting him to light up the scoreboard given the circumstances is asking a bit much.

The offense did enough to win the game. The defense did not

 

[mrbyte]

I think Dennis Green said it all
here
http://video.google.co.uk/videosear...en+chicago+bears+game&vid=3046184968432257582

just substitute Titans in for Bears

we let them off the damn hook

 

[82CardsGrad]

Here's a nugget from the Yahoo Sports recap of the game:

Quote:
Britt had 128 yards receiving, giving the franchise a 300-yard passer, 100-yard rusher and 100-yard receiver in the same game for the first time since Warren Moon, Lorenzo White and Haywood Jeffires did it for the Houston Oilers on Sept. 6, 1992

I wouldn't call that a good thing for the Cardinals defense.

This...

 

[moklerman]

Leinart got maybe 25% of the snaps during practice this week. Handing him the ball and expecting him to light up the scoreboard given the circumstances is asking a bit much.

The offense did enough to win the game. The defense did not

I would settle for "light the scoreboard". If Dixon and Jackson can account for 2 TD's in relief/emergency starts then I don't think it's too much to ask of Leinart to come up with more than 10 points in 6 quarters.

No one's saying he needs to be guiding the Cardinals to 30+ a game but he needs to do more than 10.

 

[Arizona's Finest]

My biggest concern is that we don't have anyone who can cover other then DRC. Wilson is becoming a liability in that respect and should be transitioned to OLB in the offseason IMO.

Still I am not getting too worked up about this game. If VY doesn't complete that last gasp play they STILL have 500 yards of offense but we only gave up 13 points. Even with that play we only gave up 20 and that was with Young throwing like Peyton Manning and CJ (the best back in the NFL IMO)having a good game.

Point is, in any loss you are going to be able to point to things where we need to fix. But the Colts spotted a Texans team that we played well against defensivly 17 points and gave up 27 for the game. The thing is they had Peyton on the other side of the ball. Our "Peyton" was on the sidelines.

So no, I am not that upset. I think the game plan was good and if McFadden holds onto that INT or Wells doesn't get the hold call, or even if they scored on the possession before where Britt turned over the ball, thats a BIG TIME QUALITY win and would have me drinking the Super Bowl Kool aid big time. The fact that we lost to me was more on spectacular individuals making spectacular plays. I mean its not like the just drove down the field. We made them work and Vince just came up big, time after time.

Credit to him. But I am not that upset. Our team is obviously predicated on our offense so it was nice to see us be this close against a good team when our maestro of a QB was on the sidelines.

If anything we showed we can play a defensive/special teams game on the road and still be a winner. And also we can have confidence that Matt might be the answer going forward after all as he had a very pre 2007 Tom Brady type game (high completeion percentage, made throws when he had too, and no turnovers)

I take away more bright spots then bad points about this game.

Now lets get the pass defense figured out before Farve comes to town

 

[JeffGollin]

That final Tenn drive consumed 18 plays within 2:37.

With someone as explosive as Young, that represented 18 opportunities for him to beat us. The law of probabilities caught up with us on Play #18.

It's hard to second-guess our strategy for containing Young on that final drive - i.e. don't let him escape. Make him beat you with his arm.

Two nitpicky things do come to mind, though - (1) we didn't protect the sidelines enough (enabling Tenn to run off more plays) and (2) our pass rushers didn't get their hands up enough to disrupt the throwing lanes.

Other than that: I came away thinking that - in terms of over all team skill, field smarts &/or technique - our defense came up razor-blade short yesterday. We're a relatively young team - some of those techniques and knowing how to deal with these kinds of clutch situations can be learned. (And we may have come up a smidge short in the playmaking athleticism of a couple of our backup DB's).

You can either learn from gut-wrenching experiences like these or you can curl up in the fetal position. I'm betting that Wiz, BD and the rest of the staff will use this loss to make us a stronger football team.

 

[TJ]

My biggest concern is that we don't have anyone who can cover other then DRC. Wilson is becoming a liability in that respect and should be transitioned to OLB in the offseason IMO.

Still I am not getting too worked up about this game. If VY doesn't complete that last gasp play they STILL have 500 yards of offense but we only gave up 13 points. Even with that play we only gave up 20 and that was with Young throwing like Peyton Manning and CJ (the best back in the NFL IMO)having a good game.

Point is, in any loss you are going to be able to point to things where we need to fix. But the Colts spotted a Texans team that we played well against defensivly 17 points and gave up 27 for the game. The thing is they had Peyton on the other side of the ball. Our "Peyton" was on the sidelines.

So no, I am not that upset. I think the game plan was good and if McFadden holds onto that INT or Wells doesn't get the hold call, or even if they scored on the possession before where Britt turned over the ball, thats a BIG TIME QUALITY win and would have me drinking the Super Bowl Kool aid big time. The fact that we lost to me was more on spectacular individuals making spectacular plays. I mean its not like the just drove down the field. We made them work and Vince just came up big, time after time.

Credit to him. But I am not that upset. Our team is obviously predicated on our offense so it was nice to see us be this close against a good team when our maestro of a QB was on the sidelines.

If anything we showed we can play a defensive/special teams game on the road and still be a winner. And also we can have confidence that Matt might be the answer going forward after all as he had a very pre 2007 Tom Brady type game (high completeion percentage, made throws when he had too, and no turnovers)

I take away more bright spots then bad points about this game.

Now lets get the pass defense figured out before Farve comes to town

Man you are dripping with optimism today!!

 

[Buckybird]

Bill Davis stated that he was going to stop the big play ...he hasn't and we cannot close a game unless we have a truck load of point in the bank.

It's hard to play great defense when you dont have all the horses to do it. Every team has it's flaws, but we basically have the same defense that gave up 400+ points & 35 TD passes last season. While they have been better in points allowed we are playing with a short deck on that side of the ball.

Lets analyze some of the problems defensively:

1) Campbell may be a slight upgrade over Smith at DE, but still cant find a way to drag the QB down often despite his skills.

2) AW is getting abused in coverage more than ever & isn't being used the same way as in the past.

3) Brian McFadden rarely started in Pittsburgh & proves nearly every week why he was let go. The guy simply cant play man coverage, he's better in zone. The guy also lacks ball skills.

4) This team except for occasional spurts from Haggans still doesn't have an edge rusher. Despite being in the top 5 in sacks, QB's still have too much time to throw the football on a regular basis. It's not always about sacks but getting consistant pressure. This lone reason is why we aren't Super Bowl Champions & what ultimately costs us a victory yesterday.

5) Lack of talent in the secondary at the nickle positions. Matt Ware, Ralph Brown & Adams don't scare anyone. Adams is the best of the bunch & that isn't saying much. It's time to let Greg Toler play in the nickle because he has the speed that all 3 of these guys dont. How many other teams always have 3 safeties in a game on definate passing downs? It's been that way for a long time & tells me alot about our depth in the secondary.

6) How many times do we actually get to the QB when we blitz? Rarely!!! We see the same blitz packages every week. Dansby up the middle or AW or Rolle up the middle. Change the damn packages up because they aren't working. Want to watch a team blitz, watch the Eagles or Steelers & tell me they do the same thing over & over & over. Blitzing exposes our biggest weakness in the secondary, man coverage. I'm sorry but the only DB's that have those skills are DRC & Toler.

I think if the Cards would have played zone defense all day VY would have thrown at lest 2 picks, bad call Bill Davis.
Enough said.

 

[splitsecond]

Yeah our pass rush is piss poor. Nevermind the fact that we managed 4 sacks on what is probably the best O Line in the NFL, who had only allowed 7 up to that point.

 

[splitsecond]

That final Tenn drive consumed 18 plays within 2:37.

With someone as explosive as Young, that represented 18 opportunities for him to beat us. The law of probabilities caught up with us on Play #18.

It's hard to second-guess our strategy for containing Young on that final drive - i.e. don't let him escape. Make him beat you with his arm.

Two nitpicky things do come to mind, though - (1) we didn't protect the sidelines enough (enabling Tenn to run off more plays) and (2) our pass rushers didn't get their hands up enough to disrupt the throwing lanes.

Other than that: I came away thinking that - in terms of over all team skill, field smarts &/or technique - our defense came up razor-blade short yesterday. We're a relatively young team - some of those techniques and knowing how to deal with these kinds of clutch situations can be learned. (And we may have come up a smidge short in the playmaking athleticism of a couple of our backup DB's).

You can either learn from gut-wrenching experiences like these or you can curl up in the fetal position. I'm betting that Wiz, BD and the rest of the staff will use this loss to make us a stronger football team.

I agree completely. Who the hell would have guessed the Vince Young, who has had the football IQ of a sea slug up until this point, would have beaten anyone through the air? And to do it for 18 plays, 99 yards and under 3 minutes? The dude flat out shocked everyone. The good thing is, he will undoubtedly return to arrogant VY status and end up costing the team the season down the line.

 

[Pariah]

- Our pass rush is piss poor
-

We're REALLY thin (and worse, old) at OLB. But despite that, our pass rush is actually really good. We've got an interesting 3-4 DL--usually these guys aren't pass rushers, but in CC and DD we've got a combination of guys that are collapsing the pocket on a regular basis, making up for the lack of pass rush where it traditionally comes from in the 3-4: the OLB.

That said, I don't think we can count on that long-term. We'll be okay next year if we add a veteran free agent and draft another OLB in the first three rounds (Davis and Brown coming back healthy helps a lot). I don't think we can really count on Berry or Okeafor next year. I think Haggans is on the downside, too.

JMHO

Here's a thought...if we lose Dansby next season, do you think Haggans could move inside?

 

[lauraw]

Cards D was weak or shown to be weak in this game..I think it hurts us the rest of the year and Playoffs..

 

[Proteus]

That final Tenn drive consumed 18 plays within 2:37.

With someone as explosive as Young, that represented 18 opportunities for him to beat us. The law of probabilities caught up with us on Play #18.

It's hard to second-guess our strategy for containing Young on that final drive - i.e. don't let him escape. Make him beat you with his arm.

Two nitpicky things do come to mind, though - (1) we didn't protect the sidelines enough (enabling Tenn to run off more plays) and (2) our pass rushers didn't get their hands up enough to disrupt the throwing lanes.

Other than that: I came away thinking that - in terms of over all team skill, field smarts &/or technique - our defense came up razor-blade short yesterday. We're a relatively young team - some of those techniques and knowing how to deal with these kinds of clutch situations can be learned. (And we may have come up a smidge short in the playmaking athleticism of a couple of our backup DB's).

You can either learn from gut-wrenching experiences like these or you can curl up in the fetal position. I'm betting that Wiz, BD and the rest of the staff will use this loss to make us a stronger football team.

But we're not a young team. We're the 3rd oldest team in the league according to a blog entry by Sando in september.

 

[Gambit]

We simply can't count on the D to close out a game. We either need to be up by multiple scores at the end of the game, finish the game with the ball, or leave the other time literally seconds to drive down the field--and even that makes me uncomfortable.

 

[Duckjake]

Yeah our pass rush is piss poor. Nevermind the fact that we managed 4 sacks on what is probably the best O Line in the NFL, who had only allowed 7 up to that point.

Sacks are only part of the equation. When they aren't getting sacks the opposing QB has too much time to throw.

Not that it matters because there is usually a receiver wide open that the QB can throw to quicker than any pass rusher can get to him.