First of all, I lay about 80% of the blame on the offense which looked particularly inept yesterday. 15% on special teams and most notably Thigpen who absolutely cannot muff that punt (with Freeney's boneheaded play on the punt also contributing to the loss). But regarding our defense, has anyone else noticed how good our defense can look until near the end of the game, when we have a must stop drive which usually results in sloppy tackling, bad angles, mental breakdowns, and just overall poor play? Is it coaching? Conditioning? I really haven't a clue but it seems to be a recurring problem. Clearly our focus in the off season has to be getting play-makers on offense, but there are definitely some players on defense that need to be replaced as well. I doubt that either of our corners could start for nearly any other NFL team.

One thing that bothered me was Tony McDaniels rant about the Patriots being "disrespectful" on the final drive by running the same running play over and over. It was off left guard which means they were probably running right at McD (if he was in the game).

Are you kidding me? Why wouldn't they? Stupid comments. Sounds like a cry baby.

Sounds to me like he was in the game on that drive and they rode right over him.

I did not hear that. I assumed Odrick and Wake were the only two out. Maybe McD was platooned in as well???

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“I'm here" You're welcome!" - Kenny Powers

It the Pats game they just found a soft spot and kept exploiting it. We didn't adjust (surprise, surprise). Yesterday we had two successful stops then just had a plain old breakdown on that last run. Somebody (Trusnick i think) got completely suckered inside and one good down field block later it's over. Where the safeties were IDK.


Our pass rush is good but inconsistent and you can't have an inconsistent pass rush and play a soft zone like we do. Like you though I'm not sure our corners are good enough to play much else.

In my opinion, our defense is stout but not dynamic. Unlike explosive offensive teams, our team finds itself in a ton of close games and the pressure is always on our defense. However, we lack the ability to turn a game around on defense (or very rarely do we ever do it). We can grind it out with a team, but that's where it usually stops...just don't have that extra gear to either consistently stop an offense when it really counts, or better yet take the ball away and give our offense more chances (esp at the end of the game).

To me, a lot of that is attitude (shut up and stop them McD) and some is playmaking talent. We have Wake and Jones and then 9 members of a really stout defense. Dansby and Smith drop as many INTs as Marshall did TDs.

It seems 90% fo the time the defense give up a score after the offense scores... pretty bad.

I'm gaining a lot of respect for Koi Misi though, when he is not on thefiled the defense goes south QUICK. The 2 worst games defense has played are games he missed.

Trusnick is BAD and he was one that gave up TD in place of Koi Misi

I believe our weakness is at ....

CB: Smith would be fine as a number 2 CB but he needs help.
FS: Clemens is just not that good. We need a play maker here like Dashon Goldson.

MLB: Dansby is great in coverage...As is Burnette. We lack a play maker at MLB. A must have in the 4-3. We have no one that flies around disrupting plays like Zach Thomas did.

LDE: Odrick may be better off in MCD's spot. Vernon doesn't seem to do as well vs the offense as he does vs the ST unit.

Give us the top two and we are a top 10 defense. Give us all three and we are top 5. Give us all 4 and we are an elite and dominant defense that wins games.

We could also use depth on the D-line and at LBer. McD has not played well this year. Randall, Shelby and Vernon are young.

I mean seriously. We have two guys in our nickle and dime packages that are waiver wire pickups. They actually played pretty well yesterday considering what they were tasked with..

Wilson and Stanford should be practice squad players. Nolan a backup.

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“I'm here" You're welcome!" - Kenny Powers

IMO Trusnick is a football player. Works hard, hits hard and is one of best tacklers we have. HOWEVER, he lacks speed and athleticism to play outside(THAT showed on that last play yesterday) and the size to play inside. To bad we can't transplant his attitude in to a few of the others.

His attitude is in the player he replaced. Misi.

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“I'm here" You're welcome!" - Kenny Powers

If this year we could have replaced Nolan Carroll with a true lock down corner and added a pass rusher opposite Wake who had to be game planned for, how much better would our defense be? I think just those two changes alone would make a world of difference even if everything else remained the same.

I haven't talked to my nephew yet. He's a 49ers fan but before the game I told him "Don't worry. You guys just run the ball. We can't tackle anybody."

We need a big stuffer in the middle of the line.

And what is he brought the ADDED BONUS of being a DISRUPTIVE pass rusher?


Kawaan Short---Purdue.

Fins72 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> First of all, I lay about 80% of the blame on the
> offense which looked particularly inept yesterday.
> 15% on special teams and most notably Thigpen who
> absolutely cannot muff that punt (with Freeney's
> boneheaded play on the punt also contributing to
> the loss). But regarding our defense, has anyone
> else noticed how good our defense can look until
> near the end of the game, when we have a must stop
> drive which usually results in sloppy tackling,
> bad angles, mental breakdowns, and just overall
> poor play? Is it coaching? Conditioning? I really
> haven't a clue but it seems to be a recurring
> problem. Clearly our focus in the off season has
> to be getting play-makers on offense, but there
> are definitely some players on defense that need
> to be replaced as well. I doubt that either of our
> corners could start for nearly any other NFL team.

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So what else is new?

This has been going on since Wanny's days.

eesti- The funny thing about Reshad Jones, is many around here bashed the guy. I even remember BNF lecturing me that Reshad Jones was so bad, he had no chance of an NFL career. Now people consider him one of the stars of this defense... It is weird how people forget about their past positions on players as they predict the future of others...

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All things are subject to interpretation whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and not truth.
Nietzsche