C. Hope gets some respect...

not for the right reasons

 

That's what happens when you paint a giant bullseye on your chest.

 

IMO one of the things that makes for a real solid defense isn't just having a few great players like Hope but also not having any weak sisters like Lamont. We had two Ss last year who were complete opposities, one was a stud but the other was a dud.

Thats why I would love to see the Titans end this experiment with Griffin and get him back to S. Offenses can't exploit one side of the field and if Griffin is anything close to Hope as a S our defense could go from worst to pretty darn solid with that one change.

Same deal at CB. Despite losing Pacman we have a chance to be even more solid if we can have a couple of guys like Harper and Herndon starting. Again, we will not have a stud on one side and a dud on the other (notice the brilliance of having both duds on the same side of the field last year).
Both are good run supporters and capable of playing Cover 2.

Harper, Herndon, Hope and Griffin would give us a solid defensive backfield that is better at supporting the run than last year and that has no glaring weaknesses for offensive coordinators to exploit. Think about what offensive coordinators saw last year when setting up the game plan. First, most team like to run right more than left. We had an undersized OLB (more reason to put Griffin at S IMO) on that side, a worthless S who only makes a tackle if the RB runs into him and a CB who isn't very good against the run. In passing situations you had a CB who might run with the guy but couldn't locate the ball and a S who was simply pitiful.

 

Yea, I totally agree with you on this one. 1 weak player in your secondary is too many. I'd rather have 2 consistent and reliable players than what we had last year. I could be fooling myself, but I see CB, S, and LB units as overall uprades so far for that reason, despite the loss of Pacman (realistically the 3rd or even 4th best player on D last year... Hope, Bulluck, and possibly KVB were more valuable overall). Not sure about MLB, but Sirmon struggled pretty bad in the middle - Fowler or Tulloch should be an upgrade. TJ's right about the run D and QB pressure, too - no secondary could survive with the play we got up front last year.