How much have we improved player personnel?

[ethat001]

Originally Posted by 30gut

Run defense:

I was saying earlier that I think the run defense has improved. I never thought the DL was the weak spot in terms of run defense. Its not what I saw with my eyes and its not what the stats suggest. And the only loss in terms of run defense along the DL was Knighton. And its questionable how much we lost based on the number of healthy snaps he actually played.

My view of the weakspots in run defense were both Safety spots and all ILBs not named Mason Foster. The bulk of the S snaps were taken by Goldson who was not good against the run. Maybe surprising or not but the best run support S last year was.................drum roll..........DeAngelo Hall. Yup.
So moving Hall to FS is a huge improvement from Dashon. Then we have the addition of David Bruton, a stud in the run game and Su'a another stud in the run game. A starting Safety tandem of Hall/Bruton/S'ua is a HUGE upgrade in run support from last year.

The other weakspot in my view from watching and from the available stats was the ILB group. It wasn't until Mason Foster entered the line-up did that an ILB graded out positively against the run. Perry Riley historically has been a solid run defender but through scheme change and injury his play dipped drastically in this area. I think there will be real competition from rookie Stephen Daniels. Daniels is a tackling machine.

TLDR: I think they addressed/improved the run D through moving D.Hall to FS and at SS w/ David Bruton/rookie Su'a Craven AND at ILB Mason Foster + healthy Riley/or rookie Stephen Daniels

Good analysis 30gut -- and consistent with what I've read & what Joe Barry was saying. We seemed to do decent on short runs but got gashed for long runs ---> and those long runs are more the LB and safety play on the second level.

Here's a great film breakdown / videos to demonstrate this, ie. comparison between possible run defense w Su'a Cravens vs. Trent Robinson.

We'll see in September - I trust Scott knows what he's doing.