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Originally Posted by freddyg12
I was totally against bringing Hall in here in 08, he had a bad history w/his teamates dating back to Va. Tech. He's a Hokie & a Skin so once they signed him I of course want him to play well, and he has seemed to mature a bit.
That was an incredible performance by him yesterday. He was tight in coverage on all of those picks. I hope this really improves the D overall as coordinators look to avoid him. Carlos has been playing great all year too.
On a side note, when I look at the individual performances on defense, it seems like several guys are having career years, but what's been the problem in giving up so many yards?
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Hole in zone type receptions. A lot of throws by quarterbacks are just uncontested throws against where coverage should be, but isn't. It's not a numbers game, we usually have the defense outnumbered both on the pass rush and in coverage, but even if a guy (say, Andre Johnson) runs across the zones of three different players, it's very likely he'll catch a pass without having to go up in traffic.
Also, one fun little fact about Hall's coverage this year: through six games, only 6 passes that targeted him (out of 41 total) fell incomplete. Those four interceptions vs. Chicago very nearly DOUBLED that total of incomplete passes where Hall was the defender.
The biggest reason Hall had been w/o an interception (ignoring Kolb's Hail Mary that should have been knocked to the ground) is because quarterbacks had been picking on him with great precision. Between Romo, Schaub, Bradford, Kolb, Rodgers, and Manning, there just wasn't many passes thrown behind or over receivers that Hall could "go get". With Cutler throwing off his back foot or off balance most of the day, Hall got involved VERY early in the second half, and defensed or intercepted (I think) every pass thrown at him in the second half.
He was the weakpoint of the secondary coming in, and now, it's going to be tougher for coordinators to go after him because he's absolutely going to show up on the film as nosy.