Wish I knew on the discrepancy. I don't honestly know at all what the situation is but in the end we have some work to do, more than I estimated.
>>Gap control was terrible.
I think this was our biggest problem, not tackling. Tackling square comes from these basic ideals:
read, react, get in position and prepare. If you're three yards away and you have to reach for a guy, you're not squaring up and hitting, you're grabbing and hoping. If your guys aren't keeping control of their gaps, which includes the worst of our problems last year, contain, then you have someone making a play who shouldn't be forced to make a play (someone coming from a lateral position) and when that happens there will be mistakes.
For instance, the sweep. Simple way to stop a sweep is to hold ground at the LOS if you're the contain man. Second guy does same in support and the back has to go wider. Pursuit gets him at the sideline for modest gain/loss.
I feel that having good gap control, or even simply being able to hold at the line and make the shed when needed, that will be the key difference. Once that happens, tackling should take care of itself. That pretty much goes for everyone on this team, including Grant.
So pretty much it's just altering the defense to include maybe one or two more guys with speed in the front seven (and one without that great of speed) and making sure the defense is always adequately set up to take advantage of that.
Interestingly enough it does sound like we'll have at least some of Del Rio's defense together (if not all, defensively) so a pair of two gappers doesn't seem totally out of question. Still, TFY says that one of the higher picking teams is wild about Ryan Sims. Who knows. I just hope, if so, we trade down, even if it only nets us a 3.
Dark Circles (Bela Fleck)
