The way to beat the Rams defense

[HE WITH HORNS]

Okay, I think the book is out on how to neutralize our defense.
Green Bay did it a couple weeks ago, and MN did it today.

Quick passes to the sidelines, misdirection runs, (end arounds, etc) and screen passes.
All of those plays were devastating to our defense. We tend to over pursue, and get caught out of position.
Teams know better than to take 7 step drops and wait for plays to develop downfield.

How are we going to adjust if every team plays like that against us this year?

 

[-X-]

I guess we'll have to adjust ourselves. It's true that teams are already trying to neutralize our pressure with quick hitters and screens. But if our defensive line is built on quick penetration, then our linebackers and safeties are gonna have to up their game. The last thing I want to see happen is for Williams to dial BACK the pressure. It would also help if we had any semblance of an offense, so Schotty's gonna have to hit the chalk board.

 

[DR RAM]

It's tough to be disciplined in an aggressive, young defense. We need to work on it though.

 

[iced]

the front 7 needs to get their hands up more

 

[HE WITH HORNS]

I guess we'll have to adjust ourselves. It's true that teams are already trying to neutralize our pressure with quick hitters and screens. But if our defensive line is built on quick penetration, then our linebackers and safeties are gonna have to up their game. The last thing I want to see happen is for Williams to dial BACK the pressure. It would also help if we had any semblance of an offense, so Schotty's gonna have to hit the chalk board.

You're right, the offense only hurt our defense by not letting them get off the field. But I'm worried about how we'll defend against this style of play.
It's like they couldn't see a screen pass coming at all.

 

[-X-]

You're right, the offense only hurt our defense by not letting them get off the field. But I'm worried about how we'll defend against this style of play.
It's like they couldn't see a screen pass coming at all.

Yeah, they've gotta do a better job of sniffing that out.
Or blowing it up before it can be executed.

 

[-X-]

this coaching staff doesnt adjust. schotty doesnt have a chalkboard. its all over again. bye bye

Thanks for the input. I feel ...... enlightened.

 

[cracengl]

You can see the difference. When the Vikes actually loaded up and tried to throw deep, the Rams were getting the pressure. Cassel even seemed to have happy feet a few times too. For a while I thought the secondary play (especially the physicality of the safeties) was good. They just didn't sustain it.

It's probably a product of being a young team, but the defense almost seemed to develop the mentality of "ah who cares" as the game went on and it was obvious offense was set on auto 3 and out.

If they clean up the over pursuit and make the other teams play to their strength, they can be a lot better. And if better produces turnovers and short fields for the offense, that seems to be the best and maybe only way to spark those guys (they need all the help they can get).

 

[Mackeyser]

See, I disagree. I think this young team was getting better and better at playing those screens. This young team has young players who are making plays, sometimes very good plays. As this D continues to get better at playing those screens (and not everyone has Patterson), teams will have to look away from horizontal passes which go nowhere and look to the vertical game, which plays into our defense's strength.

 

[UnknownREknown]

I like this defense's future. If we as fans get deflated watching our defense go right back out after a poor offensive series, I imagine that slowly starts to "put out" the fire the defense takes the field with. I was really impressed with Gaines and I loved how hard they were hitting, letting their presence be felt. Let's also not take away from Patterson 's talent, this guy's pretty damn good. Not saying we couldn't have adjusted better or been more productive but the offense needs to catch up and help out.

 

[Dxmissile]

I guess we'll have to adjust ourselves. It's true that teams are already trying to neutralize our pressure with quick hitters and screens. But if our defensive line is built on quick penetration, then our linebackers and safeties are gonna have to up their game. The last thing I want to see happen is for Williams to dial BACK the pressure. It would also help if we had any semblance of an offense, so Schotty's gonna have to hit the chalk board.

Exactly I feel like ogletree and Dubar was a let down. Ogletree actually let Brockers beat him all the way down the field to stop Patterson. He has to be an factor on defense.

 

[V3]

I haven't gone back and watched a second time and I wasn't really watching for it the first viewing but I thought I saw a lot of off man from the DBs when I did happen to look. If that's true, wouldn't more press help with some of those short screens, quick outs, etc? I know it's not the only culprit but perhaps it's something to look for? Also, our LB's need to step it up on those plays as well.

 

[dbrooks25]

The defense played ok overall yesterday. I keep saying it, but Minnesota did not put together ONE legit drive. I'll give them the Patterson td, but that's it. Every time they started from around their 20, the best they could muster was a fg. Their first td? Rams D forces them to punt and the Hill interception (turning point of the game) gives them the ball in Rams territory. The td to Rudolph? Again, the D forces Minnesota to punt only to get the roughing the kicker call, which put the defense right back out on the field with the ball in Rams territory. Our defense will adjust to what teams try to do to take them out of the game, I'm not really worried about that.

 

[Athos]

Actually, sans one very poorly covered and blocked (but well designed) Patterson run, they only had 279 yards of offense.

That was the LONGEST play of the day.

Next best?

A mere 17 yard run by Peterson.

The passing plays by LNG per play were 18,13,15,22. Not bad considering no Tru J and a poor Ogletree game.

And THAT was with our sad sack offense giving the Vikings excellent field position all day (someone have a stat on how many times they started in Rams territory or between the 40-50 yard line on their side?) Pretty sure it was nearly every possession.

Our D held strong. Not sustaining drives and not scoring is what killed the camel's back.

 

[snackdaddy]

The way to beat our defense? Just wait till they wear out from being on the field for so log.

 

[rking4441]

I think too many people are jumping the gun on this team. The D looked good minus that long run by Patterson and needs to clean up some sloppy tackling and the penalties. We constantly gave the Vikes additional chance and kept taking our O off the field. The Rams had over 120 yrd in penalties. This killed the already anemic offense and allowed the Vikes to keep our D on the field. As painful as that game was to watch without the penalties this would have actually been a very close game. The Vikes would have still won since they were able to get a few decent drives together where our offense sputtered all day. This also my be a byproduct of not playing any starters in the last preseason game due to injury concerns. Our O line really didn't get to play much live time with Saffold and Long being injured. I think everyone needs to take a breath and see if there is improvement next week and hopefully a win.

Grats to the Vikes on their victory but let's not look at the score and come to the conclusion our team is terrible. There are a lot of things that can be corrected, like penalties and poor tackling, in short order making this team look totally different. Keep the faith brothers!

 

[dbrooks25]

Assuming Hill doesn't get injured, I think the Rams win this game without the penalties. I can count at least three times where we were in Vikings territory and moving the ball at ease before sustaining multiple drive killing penalties.

 

[fearsomefour]

Exactly I feel like ogletree and Dubar was a let down. Ogletree actually let Brockers beat him all the way down the field to stop Patterson. He has to be an factor on defense.

Ogletree was the biggest disappointment to me on the D. Absolutely could not get off blocks.
If I'm game planning the Rams I am running right at Ogletree a lot.

 

[DaveFan'51]

I would love to be a 'Fly-on-the-Wall' in the D meeting room this week when Williams is "Talking to them"!

 

[thirteen28]

I would love to be a 'Fly-on-the-Wall' in the D meeting room this week when Williams is "Talking to them"!

O/T, but I wish someone was doing that in the O meeting room.