Morris has the talent for this defense to be elite. But it never will be by the conservative scheme he's employing. It's not the players. Staley had less talent and did more than Morris is doing. Drop, read first then react is a losing way to play. The players are too fast these days to do that. Staley played his zone as a combo zone/man. Zone only dictated who you would cover. Once a receiver entered the zone he was played in man coverage. Obviously, that is a simplification but it's an illustration of how it's different from Morris' version. In Morris' zone, they simply make their drops and wait to see where the pass is thrown then react. That concedes the reception. unless the DB is right on top of the receiver when the pass is thrown. That is the ancient way of playing zone.
Morris showed he can be more aggressive when he forced the Colt's first punt. He locked them down immediately by playing more guys in the box, taking away their run game. When they were behind the chains he then backed off and played pass. I have no problem with that at all. Had he done that the entire game IMO the score wouldn't have even been close. He would wait until they were on the Ram's side of the field before he began to tighten things down. At that point he's trying to limit them to FGs. That's a loser mentality.
I'm hoping McVay will get tired of being forced into close games with teams that the Rams should simply dominate. The Rams have the talent to put teams away a lot earlier than they are doing it. Allowing teams to hang around eventually will cost wins, against teams they should beat.
