***OFFICIAL Bolts vs. Titans Game Day Thread*** (Wk 7)

[pacstud]

Agreed on ownership
Agreed on TT's off-season and baffling roster evaluation towards OL

Also understand the nature of fan's toward play-calling. My disdain for Bradley is centered around the core softness of the defense ( not the softness of the lines, which, is personnel but the softness of scheme ). It is the game plan going into New England. It is never once - across his career - adjusting against Tom Brady. It is the 74% completions against and the inability for defense to get off the field whether Ingram, James, and Bosa are on the field or not. He just never attempts to dictate defensively and i feel like the strategy gaps against opposition are rooted in a conservative preference to react to other teams. That is a fan's feeling but the performance of the unit under Bradley has been awful - especially against competent offensive teams.

I prefer Lynn's style to McCoy's. My concern is that this is inability to pin down where the breakdown is coming from is the definition of leadership deficit. That is likely a culture that starts from worst ownership in all of professional sports but without ability to control that most important variable there needs to be adjustments to culture from inside the locker-room - if it can be maintained in the face of such absurdity the ownership thrusts upon the organization. That said, something has broken down and the insistence on not adjusting is not a testament to organizational continuity as opposed to organizational flailing but a significant failure of action further wasting a HOF QB. Inexcusable.

tbf, Rivers should get his rightful share of blame. HOF resume aside, he "goes all Rivers" in a negative way as well as a positive way. He's cost us whole seasons with two dozen bad decisions.

Bradley's style is understandably unliked, but man/blitz coordinators are just as risky, albeit more fun to watch. KC's porous defense for the last decade has occurred whether they played one deep, two deep, or man.

I still contend our defense is at its best when we can win first down and rush the passer with four guys. You have that (as we did last year) you have a good defense, which then makes any coordinator look good.

[powderblueboy]

I don’t agree that everything is results oriented. Anything that we ourselves control is results oriented. I.e catching a catchable passes or making makable tackles heck even doing well at a process oriented job. But when you add a layer of randomness or unpredictability you need to stop being 100 percent Results Oriented.

The random factor here are the players performances and the players given to the coaching staff. The coaches can’t run the plays themselves and they only have who they are given to work with. At that point you need to look at what they can control which is if the instruction is good, is the time and effort put into the game plan are the players properly prepared etcthen add in the things they can control (clock management and player management) and make a decision.

Sure results matter because they often often lead you the the root cause of the problem (which may be the coaching) but the results themselves aren’t the factor you should stay with.

Coaches have a great deal of input on what type of player they want, and the players they actually obtain - as much as anyone in the organization. Bradley, one would imagine, certainly has the power of a veto. He has had 3 years to help choose and fit players into his defensive schemes. At best, the results have been average - many would say sub par.

His style of D is the polar opposite of Belichick's: Belichick wants strong cover corners, veteran safeties, stout defensive tackles, & pretty much makes due with average pass rushers - scheming pressure through various blitzes packages; Bradley wants taller zone corners, dynamic - young safeties, light gap penetrating tackles and pretty much depends on stellar pass rushers to provide pressure

Given the state of offensive lines: where units can't practice much, nor hang together for long due to free agency, Belichicks style of D makes a hell of a lot more sense.

[Topcat]

Coaches have a great deal of input on what type of player they want, and the players they actually obtain - as much as anyone in the organization. Bradley, one would imagine, certainly has the power of a veto. He has had 3 years to help choose and fit players into his defensive schemes. At best, the results have been average - many would say sub par.

His style of D is the polar opposite of Belichick's: Belichick wants strong cover corners, veteran safeties, stout defensive tackles, & pretty much makes due with average pass rushers - scheming pressure through various blitzes packages; Bradley wants taller zone corners, dynamic - young safeties, light gap penetrating tackles and pretty much depends on stellar pass rushers to provide pressure

Given the state of offensive lines: where units can't practice much, nor hang together for long due to free agency, Belichicks style of D makes a hell of a lot more sense.

Great analysis of the different styles. One of the main problems with Bradley's defense, as I see it, is that it is very predictable. When you rush 4 almost all the time, your O-line coach can really do some effective game-planning to stop those 4 rushers. For those O-linemen who are the weak links, they can also do some effective planning on double-teams, TE and RB chips, etc. But when you surprise an O-line with different blitz packages, most of that planning goes out the window. Blocking assignments get missed, and QB's get sacked or hurried. As much as I dislike Belicheat for his cheating, I have to hand it to the dude for being light years ahead of a lot of other coaches...