Also, we just about cut all the dead weight on this defense that we could.

With the exception of old washed up dudes like Tamba and DJ, has anybody really found success on other teams when they've left us?

Is Gaines now tearing shit up in Buffalo? Acker and Marcus Cooper? I saw that Bennie Logan starts for the Titans. Is he soooo much better over there?

With the exception of depth and gaining future talent, I don't exactly know what the blueprint for getting better on defense is besides targeting the obvious areas (safety, CB, DL).

I mean... at this point it's gotta be scheme/coaching, right? We've tried re-stocking the talent. Try something else now and see if that works.

Great post Marco; thanks for sharing. The assessment provided within this article is spot on, and I suspect it pretty much summarizes what many of us feel as per Sutton and his defensive schemes.....they simply are not effective.

Terrance Mitchell looked good until he broke his forearm.

PFF is grading Logan a tiny bit worse than X. Williams, and Nnadi has a much better grade.

Not that I'm against dumping Sutton and changing to a 4-3, but a lot of people thought the defense was a 2 year rebuild in the off season, this is about playing out as I expected with injuries to some of the actual key defenders making it a little worse than it could be.

so now we're in agreement?

God I hope you are wrong. Why would Andy want to work with a D-coach/coord that needed Reid's oversight on everything?
Andy isn't a defensive mind. Andy can not bring one...single...thing to that side of the ball. Nothing. I'm sure he can get in the way; of that I have no doubt. But aren't we trying to WIN here???

We are paying Watkins $48 million over 3 years and so far Wilson is having by far the better year. And I can't really believe I am saying that because I hated Wilson for so long with his alligator attempts but he won me over last year.

Wilson is way higher up on the pecking order on a way crappier team. Wilson's stats would be much lower here because of all the mouths to feed in front of him.

Wilson is almost option 1b on that team. He would be option G here.

Watkins is an insurance policy. He wasn't signed to be some stud every week. He's an expensive depth signing.

Exactly.

Sean Lee must have made him look much better than he is

Kinda like Peppers did with Simms in college

He played in place of Lee when Lee was hurt.

Not at all ready to throw in the towel on this dude yet, the entire defense is off kilter right now and I wanna see what he is capable of on a stable unit

He was very well thought of in league circles before signing in KC, he gets a pass IMO

Well, it's not like we're dealing with a small sample size at this point, right? I'm more inclined to believe the Dallas area Chief Fan assessment that Hitchens needs a stud LB to partner with in order to be the kind of player we were hoping to get.

He sucks.

Probably completely incorrect.

After all, he is one of the best offensive minded coaches ever in the NFL. And how would you, or could you, do that without knowing how to manipulate and take advantage of the defense?

Answer: you couldn't. It would be necessary to have an intimate understanding of defensive schemes, situational play-calling, etc. to be able to consistently exploit weaknesses in NFL defenses, period.

The fact of the matter is that he probably knows more about defenses, what their inherent strengths and weaknesses are and so forth, than most of the DCs that are currently employed in the NFL.

Agreed totally !

He reminds me of DJ pre Todd Haley. He tends to run around blocks rather than take them on head on (from my uneducated eye, anyway). It was telling yesterday when that Oakland fullback had to run towards Hitchens for contact rather than Hitchens running to him.

Say what you will about the Todd Haley experience, but he got something from DJ and Bowe that no coach was able to do before him.

All you've mentioned are generalities that EVERY HC from the offensive side of the fence should be bringing to the table overall.

And that bolded part? OMG and **** me. If that were the case, Reid would be the most unbeatable, unstoppable OC/HC in the history of the league. He'd need a ****ing walk-in vault to store all of his rings and hardware.

Nope.
Nope.
Nope-ity nope.

Ooooooofffffffffff

Ouch

Our LB's suck.

I pray to god either Bolton or Gay pans out well.

“A big weapon” Rapaport called this signing. Right.

Bolton leads all rookies in tackles

He turrible.

He did us a favor getting hurt

The scheme and/or talent cliff monster attacks the defense again.

Why is everyone complaining about hitch? He will be gone next year

Uhh......because he's not gone already? :hmmm: