The Return Of Cb Stability

[Beemnseven]

Originally Posted by Misterbillysells

I guess for me the big thing is that a year ago most people felt that our d-line was solid and that the addition of carter would only make it better. Then with injuries in secondary we were forced to back our defense off the line and blitz less so teams were able to gash us with the running game and we werent able to generate as much of pass rush. Suddenly we have a terrible d-line with no one worth keeping. Has our line really aged that much in one year? Or maybe was it the broader circumstance of the whole defensive scheme having to shift to cover our vunerability in the secondary. If we dont try to add young depth secondary we will be in the same situation as soon as springs leaves. Plan for the future and draft a corner. Dropping down in the draft to get both seems ideal but if not i think corner is still a more pressing long term problem than our d-line.

Well, I didn't feel the D-line was solid last year. I didn't think it was solid in 2005 either, but it turned out to be enough. This franchise has feverishly avoided upgrading the defensive line for years. Kenard Lang was the last high pick at that position back in 1997 -- with a completely different front office. And nothing impressed me about Andre Carter -- he was a dud on a really bad San Fransisco team. I don't know what anyone should have expected from him.

The injuries you refer to was chiefly Shawn Springs. When he went down, we couldn't blitz because none of the other guys in the secondary couldn't hold things down on their own. When your entire pass rush hinges on a cornerback then you had big problems to begin with.

And yes, I do believe this line got old and bad in a hurry. That's not uncommon in this league. Neglecting to plant some seeds along the D-line was like setting the clock on a ticking time-bomb. And in 2006 that time- bomb went off. We couldn't stop anybody, and we couldn't get near the quarterback. Hell, we couldn't do that in 2004 or 2005 either, we had to blitz linebackers and safeties in order to do that! It was like lightening striking twice if one of our defensive lineman was able to sack the quarterback.

Some will say that Gregg Williams system is set up that way. Maybe so. But we saw what happens when the secondary can't cover anybody and the linebackers are forced to make the tackle 6 or 7 yards after the line of scrimmage. If you had any sort of pressure up front, your bad secondary could concentrate on staying with their receivers. Last year we had to lay off the blitz and there was ZERO pressure on the quarterback.

Result: #31 overall in defense. We can't count on Griffin, Salave'a, Golston and Montgomery for another year anymore than we could with another year of Mike Rumph, Kenny Wright, or Adam Archuleta. If we do nothing with the D-line, expect more bad defense for 2007.