Meeks hired as new DC

No pressure on the QB most of the time (always a killer) and if you watched the DB's pre-snap quite a few times they looked lost as to where they were supposed to be lined up. I swear Marshall was lost the whole game any time he came in as the 3rd DB.

 

Marshall and Beason screwed up their coverage a couple of times, but most of the time the guys were where they were supposed to be, Arizona just exploited our Cover 3 scheme.

 

we blitzed a lot less than we did in other games. We blitzed less, I'm going to assume, than we did the first AZ game.

I don't know what's the right way to attack Warner. Traditionally he gets worse the more hits he takes but he's also going to generally beat a blitz and has an open enough scheme to keep you from succeeding that much.

PFW has a Whispers page where an unnamed coach/scout (by the words used, looks like it was a coach) trashing Trgovac's scheme against AZ. We can go around and around on this one (was it Fox? Was it Trgo? Was it the ghost of George Seifert?) for responsibility but we can all agree that whatever we did, didn't work, and when we did change, it was past the point of useful (and it was a more aggressive ideal you wouldn't likely use as much in a close game, since AZ no longer needed to take any changes).

And no, our guys haven't looked as prepared lately. You could, of course, say "Fox stepped in around the time things looked worse" and blame it on him. You could also say that Trgovac essentially admitting burnout necessitated him receiving help. I don't know so I'm not going to assume either. I do hope that change brings prepared defenses, the ability to adjust to the need rather than being rigid, and attentive, instinctive football.

 

I do hope that change brings prepared defenses


Yeah, the D didn't look well prepared. When doods blow coverages and such, it tends to make me feel they aren't well prepared.

Marshall looked particularly lost in zone, especially when he and Lucas or Harris had adjacent or edge 'overlapping' type areas. And a poster earlier was right, they often looked like the 3 stooges out there, even moreso in the AZ game. But generally, I believe I saw it all season, at times during most games.

I hope the change brings some better pressuring opportunities and overall tighter coverages and a look of preparedness, along with the flexibility of changing 'plans' when need be and being able to make good adjustments.

It's one thing to get beat on D because of being outplayed/outphysicalled. It's another when the other teams routinely score on blown coverages, misstackles or general mistakes- especially when the D doesn't make those mistakes and shuts down the opposing Os.

 

I just got through telling you that there were only a couple of blown coverages in that game, which is pretty normal for any defense. The rest of the time the secondary played as it was supposed to, Arizona just attacked our Cover 3 extremely effectively. They do have good players, you know. Jim Johnson isn't a shitty DC just because Warner & Fitzgerald carved up Philadelphia too.

 

I wasn't specifically talking about one game, sir. And it seemed that the regular season AZ game looked worse as far as the D as the PO game. Of course, as it were, most of our loses in the reg season rested squarely on the offense (or lack thereof). Still, what I saw from our D most of the year, was as I described earlier. We shoulda blown a lot more teams out during this past year, had our D played better consistently (specifically our secondary), seems to me.

 

You're not wrong that the defense and the secondary specifically could have been a lot better, but I wanted to make it clear that it wasn't often a result of missed assignments. As others suggested, Meeks' background with DBs might help. It would also help if Fox would stop having Chris Harris drop deep and if Godfrey plays better (or they get a free safety who will).