albefree69 said:
X talking up zone defenses:
We're talking about something entirely different now then. Because I was talking about the defensive philosophy that we should use against a read-option offense. You're talking about generalities now. And I still disagree that off-coverage is a death sentence no matter what the circumstance might be. Discipline, situational awareness, and gap integrity will make most any team that runs a 4-3 zone defense very dangerous. And not for nothing, but this defense doesn't play 10 yards off the ball on every third down. Once they get more disciplined, everybody is going to forget about their personal gripes as it relates to what they see relative to pre snap coverage. These coaches aren't putting the defense in a position to lose because they have some twisted desire to make them fail. I mean ... think about it.
Even if what you say here is true and I don't believe that it is, Fisher has not shown that he can do it successfully against good QBs. That's when he was coaching the Titans too. It can work against lesser QBs like it did last year but when has it worked against a good QB?
BTW, I don't consider Wilson and Kapernoodle to be good QBs.
To get back to your point about zone Ds being good, I think that isn't true anymore. You'd know this better than me but isn't the crossing routes in the middle of the field the soft spot for zone Ds? When you could hit the defenseless WRs it was a big help for zones. With the new rules not so much.
The other point which I've mentioned in the past and so have others, is that our CBs are better suited to play press coverage IMO.
For the coup de grace, what did Holt say about this subject. Holt holds a lot of sway with me.
I'm not saying that zone doesn't have its vulnerabilities, because it does. But then again, so does every defense. All I'm saying is that I saw (as did Doc) execution breakdowns when I slowed the game down to a crawl. And again, that's not the only defensive alignment they run. It's not a pure zone defense by any stretch. Jenkins, for instance, plays press a lot on the outside in 2-WR sets. We've also seen these great QBs you mentioned exploit the instances we were in man coverage to the tune of instant TDs.
A lot of people would be demanding some cushion for guys like Jones and Fitzgerald if our DBs got torched repeatedly in man coverage (remember Torrey Smith?). I think the coaches should concentrate on making this work via numerous reps and tons of film study, and not try to do something that fans think is the right call because a couple of our corners earned the title of "physical." It takes much more than being physical to play mainly press.
It's just not as simple as saying, "Scrap that, and do this." I appreciate guys like Holt, Venturi, and whoever else is piling on, but how much do they really see outside of the 3 hours they're looking at the game? And even then. How much do they REALLY see?
