Gregg Williams Abusing his Secondary

[Robocop]

First of all I want to say amazing day for the defense and great win and thank god for #33 hes been a life saver. BUT on the final drive after Gregg Williams and his D played and amazing 59 minutes of football he decides to almost blow it. After rewatching all 8 sacks 7 of those came with 5 or fewer men and half with just 4. This CANNOT be over stated. Williams has lost us games by bringing too many blitzers that simply trip over eachother leaving easy one on one coverage for quick passes. Last year we got 53 sacks with barely blitzing so why does he try and fix what isn't broken? Williams decided on the final drive to bring the house constantly therefore leaving one on one coverage with a rusty Johnson drawing TWO penalties. I dont blame a rusty Tru I blame Williams for putting the corners in that situation. Joyner had trouble too. It's just not right. I hope Williams has finally learned his lesson. Bring one MAYBE two blitzers still plenty of exotic ways to do so. But he needs to let the front 4 do more work alone and give the secondary support and your guaranteed more sacks like yesterday. AND that coverage almost got 2 picks BTW!

 

[Legatron4]

One good game does not discard the fact that Gregg Williams has single handedly made this defense worse. I can't believe what I'm watching this year. I seriously hope this defense will continue to improve but the all out blitzing on nearly every play is mind boggling. What happened to disguising coverages? You can fool the QB with being 8 guys on a blitz.

 

[Ballhawk]

Yep! And it does make the play of Gaines even more amazing! I don't know how JJ gets back on the field unless someone else gets hurt.
Of course Jenkins playing in the slot is a very intriguing idea for sure!

 

[Fatbot]

I agree with the original post. Also what compounds the problem is how GW overloads the outside instead of blitzing up the middle more. Quinn and Hayes/Sims were doing perfectly fine getting pressure outside, throwing corners at it was just a waste. But the biggest problem is blitzing isn't just done in a game plan, it should be done on feel between a defense and coordinator and how the flow of the game is going. The defense has to be inspired and fired up to do it. GW seems to be forcing the Rams defenders to do these blitzes even when they don't want/need to do it. Just seems to me the team hasn't bought into GW yet, maybe a few more good games and there will be more trust & success.

 

[jrry32]

I don't think there was much to complain about with GW against the 49ers. Kaepernick was confused throughout the game and there were only a couple blitz calls that I really took issue with. Actually called a really good game. The 49ers were having major issues diagnosing where our blitzers would come from. First time all year that I felt he was living up to his billing.

 

[Robocop]

Yep! And it does make the play of Gaines even more amazing! I don't know how JJ gets back on the field unless someone else gets hurt.
Of course Jenkins playing in the slot is a very intriguing idea for sure!

interesting idea. also with all 3 having unique skill sets can let you mach the corner to the receiver. And throw in Joyner everywhere

 

[RamFan503]

Obviously our defense isn't playing as well as it was last year. Although we did start off the year playing very poorly on defense last year. The question I have is if this is truly a system type problem. I'm not making excuses for anyone but we are a very young team - especially on defense and this is the first year in a new system.

What I won't do is use absolutes on what Williams is doing wrong. I have my thoughts as a fan and observer but saying that anything is guaranteed or obvious because I think I see something they don't would be pretty inane.

Our defense got better as it went along last year but make no mistake, it was no juggernaut. We had sacks but couldn't stop the run or intermediate pass. It looks like our defense is getting better again as the year moves along.

So I will watch this team play and hopefully get better. I will certainly discuss my observations, but I'm very reluctant to act as if I know for sure what will work better. The team needs to play better throughout. In the end, the coaches need to get that out of the players. But I also think that often, Krappy has shown the propensity for making bonehead plays when running for his life and I can see the thought that we may have needed a turn over once the whiners got the ball within FG range. And I think that is also about the time that Williams really dialed up the blitz.

 

[TexasRam]

There is no reason to send more than 5....unless you just want an extra body to bring down Kaep when he avoids the rush and tries to scramble. That may have been the point.

Plus might as well put the CB's on an island since the safety help never gets there anyways.

 

[Yamahopper]

Palmer can't take as much heat as the Rams brought against SF. He's not mobile enough to evade it so he's going to turtle. Rams win if that happens.

 

[RamFan503]

One point I will make is that we held the Whiners to 10 points. That doesn't happen without a pretty good defensive game plan. I think the day after a huge win like this is pretty lousy timing to post a thread like this. I also would say that Tru would have likely had the same coverage on that route blitz or no and he made a bad play on a quick throw. But that interference I saw with Tru was something I have seen ours and other DBs make when they didn't know where the ball was or thought they were beat on the play. Not sure I put that PI on the fact that we brought the house. It's not like it left a wide open receiver running free.

 

[Robocop]

Obviously our defense isn't playing as well as it was last year. Although we did start off the year playing very poorly on defense last year. The question I have is if this is truly a system type problem. I'm not making excuses for anyone but we are a very young team - especially on defense and this is the first year in a new system.

What I won't do is use absolutes on what Williams is doing wrong. I have my thoughts as a fan and observer but saying that anything is guaranteed or obvious because I think I see something they don't would be pretty inane.

Our defense got better as it went along last year but make no mistake, it was no juggernaut. We had sacks but couldn't stop the run or intermediate pass. It looks like our defense is getting better again as the year moves along.

So I will watch this team play and hopefully get better. I will certainly discuss my observations, but I'm very reluctant to act as if I know for sure what will work better. The team needs to play better throughout. In the end, the coaches need to get that out of the players. But I also think that often, Krappy has shown the propensity for making bonehead plays when running for his life and I can see the thought that we may have needed a turn over once the whiners got the ball within FG range. And I think that is also about the time that Williams really dialed up the blitz.

I agree there's adjustments to the system and we're young. but actually I believe we were top ten in run stopping last year. this year we've been plugging the hole but blitzing leaves the edge open where most yards are coming from. you can fact check. we also had 3 sacks on 22 blitzes yesterday. the other 5 were just the front 4. same MO for the previous sacks last couple games. results speak for themselves. he needs more balance and the D will flourish.

 

[V3]

Yep! And it does make the play of Gaines even more amazing! I don't know how JJ gets back on the field unless someone else gets hurt.
Of course Jenkins playing in the slot is a very intriguing idea for sure!

Jenkins in slot, Joyner at FS, Barron at S/LB, McLeod on bench.

McLeod has been okay this year but I still think he's just a good backup/sub. I think Joyner would be much better at FS and Jenkins would be better at slot CB than Joyner. That's just me, though.

 

[yrba1]

Let's hope he goes out of character when we face the Broncos. Manning will KILL your defense if you blitz, he knows how to audible a hot read as if he's reading your mind.

 

[mr.stlouis]

I'll take eight sacks and a win any day.

I hope he learned his lesson, too. Send and disguise blitzes from the edges more than up the middle. It just works WAY better.

 

[RamFan503]

I agree there's adjustments to the system and we're young. but actually I believe we were top ten in run stopping last year. this year we've been plugging the hole but blitzing leaves the edge open where most yards are coming from. you can fact check. we also had 3 sacks on 22 blitzes yesterday. the other 5 were just the front 4. same MO for the previous sacks last couple games. results speak for themselves. he needs more balance and the D will flourish.

I don't actually recall it that way. Where are you getting this? I thought we brought extras on most of the sacks. It seemed JL was used quite a bit in blitzes.

As to last year, we finished strong but started out not being able to stop anyone. Still it appears that our defense started out playing a little better than this year.

Regardless, yesterday's game is not one I would have chosen to show that Williams doesn't know what he's doing. It was probably our best defensive game of the year and we WON.

 

[Robocop]

I don't actually recall it that way. Where are you getting this? I thought we brought extras on most of the sacks. It seemed JL was used quite a bit in blitzes.

As to last year, we finished strong but started out not being able to stop anyone. Still it appears that our defense started out playing a little better than this year.

Regardless, yesterday's game is not one I would have chosen to show that Williams doesn't know what he's doing. It was probably our best defensive game of the year and we WON.

the official numbers of that game were 22 blitzes resulting in 3 sacks. the others were a 4 man rush. and those 3 blitzes for sacks was just one blitzer. check the multiple threads of the sack replays. But yes awesome game go Rams!

 

[RamFan503]

the official numbers of that game were 22 blitzes resulting in 3 sacks. the others were a 4 man rush. and those 3 blitzes for sacks was just one blitzer. check the multiple threads of the sack replays. But yes awesome game go Rams!

Link?

 

[Memphis Ram]

Rusty or not, Trumaine Johnson has to know to look back for the ball.

 

[Warner4Prez]

You get what you pay for. GW blitzing at the cost of the secondary should not come as a surprise to anyone, especially Fish. This is part of the reason he's never had a top ranked defense, they'll give up yards and points being burnt on the blitz.

The assumption is that your offense has put you in a spot with the luxury of giving up some points (which this one has not) or you've made the QB skittish with enough hits/pressures/sacks that the defense can feast on mistakes.

Be prepared for more of the same! Thankfully it looks like the defense is finally acclimating. For the record, I'm totally cool with it. I expected the growing pains on defense, especially with the fresh faces in the secondary. I do fully expect them to turn it around in the second half.

 

[Rabid Ram]

I'm with ramFan503 on this. Wrong game to choose tto argue that our d coord is incompetent. It As usual feels like certain people just like to ruffle feathers no matter what the outcome.