Defense Trending Up?

[Coachmarkos]

Reid, Mebane, Bosa are all upgrades.

Brown is an upgrade.

Hayward is an upgrade.

Lowry is a downgrade. (although not as bad as I thought he'd be)

Phillips/McCoil will probably be a downgrade from Addae... who isn't great...but actually broke up a couple passes this preseason. I thought his coverage skills have improved.

Makes me nervous with Luck this week, because he can run around and avoid pass rush.
-I don't think Emanuel is every going to be a great pass rusher at OLB, he's there to set the edge on the outside runs...
-Attouchou is now pretty much just a pass rush specialist. He got in on Alex Smith a few times, in the Chiefs game.

Overall, I think the defense is better. And yes, they can be had, and beaten. But overall, more improvements than losses.

[QSmokey]

Q you call KC crappy? Not I....they were wat 11-5 last year? I think they have an excellent shot at the division.

The Jags have good players but im not sold on the cosching staff and schemes. Give them some credit they put up a good game against GB. We just have a better offense than GB in my opinion and I think we match up well against the Jags with our Defense.

Overall our D looks like it weathered the offseason well and is playing competitively AND forcing 4 turnovers is going to help a lot. Only 2 games in but I think we absolutely have improved...how much only time will tell. Indy has zero run game and their OL is very suspect so I expect a good showing if we can get to Luck and force some mistakes. If our offense starts off like it has we really force indy into a passing game which opens him up to the pass rush with a bad line.

Probably the wrong word. Overrated, I think fits. At least, overrated by me going into the season.

[Guest]

Probably the wrong word. Overrated, I think fits. At least, overrated by me going into the season.

I'm going to take every NFL pundit's opinion over yours. The majority of them claimed that KC would win the AFC West this year.

[QSmokey]

I'm going to take every NFL pundit's opinion over yours. The majority of them claimed that KC would win the AFC West this year.

And I'm going to take every Raider fan's opinion over yours.

[Guest]

And I'm going to take every Raider fan's opinion over yours.

Why wouldn't you?

[Heatmiser]

It is early. But KC looks like a 6-10 team to me. Defense really misses Houston and Hali is not who he once was. And Peters may have read his own press clippings so much that he is not focusing. He does not look like a pro bowler this year. Relying on Alex Smith only seems to work against the Chargers. My early assessment is that KC will be 4th in the division this year.

TG

[OhioBolt]

It is early. But KC looks like a 6-10 team to me. Defense really misses Houston and Hali is not who he once was. And Peters may have read his own press clippings so much that he is not focusing. He does not look like a pro bowler this year. Relying on Alex Smith only seems to work against the Chargers. My early assessment is that KC will be 4th in the division this year.

TG

Isn't that the truth and again he is an average QB but looks like a Pro Bowler against us. Alex Smith is only as good as the parts around him, he will never carry your team. John Harbaugh favored Kapernack over Smith because he knows that Smith couldn't lead the team to a Super Bowl and San Fran had a really good D, and a good offense.

Back to the Chargers D is it Adrian Phillips is listed as Addae's backup I was assuming it would be McCoil, but the depth chart shows him as 3rd string backup to Lowery, and Stuckey.

[blueman]

As long as our front 7 keeps it up, our DBs will "play" way better than last year. Look at the Jags game, when did our DBs play a more perfect game?

Sorry haters, but we're doing something right.

[RTPbolt]

I forgive you Q ��. I am not saying KC is a shoe in but i think Reid is a solid coach and they have solid talent. Denver is still going to be tough to beat but they are beatable. Hopefully Cincy can step it up this week after their loss.

I see this as a wide open year for our Division. Lots of questions out there for who will step it up.

[Lightningwill_420]

Far be it from me to even hint at being positive but I think you're being a bit harsh by claiming, as you have, that the defense contains only one good player (which I gotta believe is Verrett). No teams has 11 (or even 10 or 9 or 8) great starters on defense. Not saying this defense is even in the top half of the League, but it *has* played 3 good halfs of football so far this year. Mebane has been a nice addition, and Reid has been a nice surprise. Luiget hasn't been terrible, either (regardless of whether his salary and performance are on par). If Bosa turns out to be half the player we hope he is, that can only help.

As for the DBs, I think Heyward has played well thus far; as has Flowers. And Verrett, IMO, is a top 5 CB. We are extremely vulnerable at Safety, but perhaps McCoil can step up (and save Addae from CTS at 28).

Which brings us to the LBs. Obviously Perryman has got to raise his game. And Te'o is just a guy, IMO. But the player who has exceeded expectations is Brown. So I think that's been an unexpected plus.

I realize that it's easy to be optimistic after a blowout win; even against a hapless team like the Jaguars. So yeah, the first time we play a good team we'll see how well we fare. But even against two crappy opponents, the team has exceeded my expectations (which, granted, was pretty easy ).

Great starters? I'm not talking about Junior Seau. Until last year; I'm just talking about somebody who might rise to the level of, say, Jacques Cesaire. The vast majority of starters who have been on our team since Pagano took over as defensive coordinator wouldn't qualify as starters on most teams.

Defensive line: Corey Luiget probably would have made it as a starter elsewhere as a rookie simply because he was highly touted out of college. However, as far as what he's done as a professional - I'd rather have had Jacques Cesaire this whole time. Yea, according to Steve, Luiget has played well these first two games. But I've seen him play well before and then go back to being the same bottom-of-the-roster player he would be on most teams.

Mebane? I've heard good things about him. But, like Steve says, nose tackles don't play many snaps.

I guess our other guy on the D line is some dude named Reid. Caraun Reid. Hey, great game this past week against a team I knew we would blow out. We'll see how he does against a decent team. Looking at his stats, he has spent the first two years in the league as a part-time starter for the Lions.

And, before Reid and Mebane, who did we have on the D line? Nobody. They all have sucked. Some of our D-line starters have been so bad, I'm not even sure they'd make it as backups elsewhere.

Linebacker - Manti Te'o hasn't been worthy of being a starter even when he's healthy enough to actually play. And, other than a couple of early career games from Melvin Ingram, Te'o has been the best linebacker Pagano has had. That's how sorry our linebacking crew has been.

Secondary - Weddle was a terrific starter for years. Then, two years ago, because we didn't have any linebackers, Weddle was forced to play linebacker and safety at the same time and wasn't particularly great at either. Then, last year, after the contract dispute, he had a fuck-it attitude and suddenly became an injury-prone player, an issue he never had when he liked playing for the Chargers.

Other than Weddle, we had one decent year from a starter - Brandon Flowers a couple years ago. Last year, he was injured and played like he was injured.

We have also had pieces of great years from Jason Verrett. He's the man when he's on the field. But he's not always healthy enough to be on the field.

This year, we have Casey Hayward, who looked great last week. We'll see if he keeps it up. Me? I tend to not judge a player based on one week. I don't know much about him; the the Packers didn't seem to fight too hard to keep him. Looking at the stats, he's been a part-time starter for the Slackers his whole career. Like I've said multiple times, most of our starters wouldn't be starters on other teams.

But this isn't a negative message, and neither was my last one. Most of you think Pagano sucks. But I say the opposite - the man is a wizard. He has taken a pile of nothing and made it into a mediocre NFL defense for years. The only time I think he failed to make average out of garbage was last year. But, even last year, he kind of had shit rolling again by the end of the season. If this season plays out like it normally does on the defensive side of the ball, against most teams, we are going to be an average defense. Yea, we'll miss tackles, have a disappearing pass rush, and have drives in which we are giving up 10-yard rushes multiple times, and then the whole board will be enraged and want Pagano gone. But, we'll give up the league-average number of points because Pagano will get this case of stale PBR to play like a jolly-pack of average domestic macrobrews. Then, sometimes, we'll play teams that can do everything on offense - block, pass, catch, and run, and we will look awful defensively for the entire game.

And, you are going to say to me - how can a team with an average defense win the Super Bowl? The answer is Philip Rivers with time to throw and some sort of run support. We were a play away from the AFC Championship game a couple seasons ago under that same scenario. And I think Rivers is at least one play better than he was that season.

[QSmokey]

Great starters?

[Middle removed to save bandwidth]

And I think Rivers is at least one play better than he was that season.

I did read this entire rant...uh...reply, but I'm not exactly sure what the point was. Probably could have been said in three (3) sentences:

Our defense has no talent (other than Verrett...who can't stay healthy).
Pagano is great.
Rivers is God.

But IMO, Rivers, even with "some sort" of running game and time to throw is not enough to win a SB, despite your obvious man-crush. Because we'll still lose games to teams that "can do everything". And so will every other team.

[bonehead]

I did read this entire rant...uh...reply, but I'm not exactly sure what the point was. Probably could have been said in three (3) sentences:

Our defense has no talent (other than Verrett...who can't stay healthy).
Pagano is great.
Rivers is God.

But IMO, Rivers, even with "some sort" of running game and time to throw is not enough to win a SB, despite your obvious man-crush. Because we'll still lose games to teams that "can do everything". And so will every other team.

Yeah that wasn't a rant, Will gave a well reasoned response to the OP, but of course didn't fit your effed up worldview so u marginalized him and throw in the "man crush" non sequitur ....I look forward to the Bolts beating Indy and going 2-1 and then watching you shit all over it