I just dont understand

Discussion in 'Tennessee Titans and NFL Talk' started by SupDawg, Nov 7, 2006.

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  1. Gut

    Gut Pro Bowler

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    Sledge...

    How come other teams stop the run with 'normal' size DT's in the 300lb range?

    You contradict yourself by saying they are too small but then saying Jesse is a big dude but can't play.

    So what IS the problem in your eyes?

    Gut

     
  2. TitanJeff

    TitanJeff Kahuna Grande Staff

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    Okay, let's discuss a bit more then.

    How do you measure talent? If it isn't by what that talent produces, then I don't know how you can. I see natural ability not as talent but potential.

    When I think of talent, I think about how it is used. For example, "he is a talented writer". That is based on what that writer has produced. Not so much his potential though it could be taken to the next level.

    That is why I feel production is the measure of talent.

    All players in the NFL have shown talent at the college level. Do they remain talented when they fail at the pro level?
     
  3. TitanJeff

    TitanJeff Kahuna Grande Staff

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    Okay, this is probably reasonable. That means we have six players who would probably start on a top 15 defense. Of those you mention, we didn't have Smith for the first few games of the season. We've not had Haynesworth for four. We've not had Pac and Thornton for one each.

    It helps to tell the story, IMO.
     
  4. Vigsted

    Vigsted Starter

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    Another example of how the word talented is being misused. A talented writer is the character Jamal Wallace in Finding Forrester, a skilled writer is Stephen King, Dan Brown, J.K. Rowling, Tom Clancy, etc., although I'm sure they also posses talent.
     
  5. Gut

    Gut Pro Bowler

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    Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner...then read!

    Commence Munching...

    If you're nearly leading the league in tackles at your position, you have to be at least decent and more likely good. I feel KVB is a little less effective than last year for 2 reasons. First, people know him and will scheme that into their offense...chipping him with backs or double teaming him more. Secondly, with teams running so much against us he'll be playing more run first on the first 2 downs...meaning his pass rush will be less effective vs passes on first down especially. But that is a byproduct of how the d is playing.

    I wasn't gonna go there though that is certainly a valid argument...but it's worse than that. First, we are playing TOO MUCH zone and giving an easy zone read pre-snap to the QB. When we're playing Dallas and it's 3rd and 5 and TO goes in motion...if no CB goes with him, you've just told the offense that the D is in zone...allowing the offense to dictate the matchup. Not only that, but the QB and WR both now know it's zone. Result...TO runs a crossing pattern and is wide open for a first down. Against most zones, LB's cover the middle of the short field so they've dictated that TO is working against our LB's...a big mismatch FOR them. An excellent DC would use a match up zone a lot..especially on key plays...which would see a CB run with TO in motion giving the QB a man to man read. However, at the snap, the CB now plays the zone position of his area on the field and the other players adjust accordingly. While the CB is not technically covering TO, the QB already has gotten a false pre-snap read and won't be able to tell the difference for the first .5-1.0 seconds. This is an obvious advantage to the D since the QB has a false read, may decide to look at a different WR as his primary because it's a man cover D (or so he thinks) and TO and other WR's may adjust their patterns because their reading man coverage initially. See how this helps the D?

    We're not doing this or do it VERY infrequently. Also, when you're in a cover 2 D and they put 3 WR's to one side, you need to have a change built into the scheme because the 3 WR's can stretch the zone with 1 WR in the flat (draws up the CB), one WR breaking a short post to draw over the deep outside safety while the last WR breaks a deeper croner route which is successful because the deep safety has already been lured inside and is now out of position. Most good defenses adjust the defensive play when the offense tries to overload one side of the field. In response they overload the zone to that side of the field to take away this easy exploit. Not the Titans. Bad enough we allow this to happen in one game...worse is having the exact same thing done in the next game.

    Of course, we can also point out the most obvious thing you alluded to. Since the Titans don't man up their corners, the Cowboys get to decide when they want Hill covering TO. Needless to say that either gives them a HUGE advantage or it forces the defense to adjust it's scheme to try and help Hill (put a S over top). In response, they overload the other side of the field. Now what do you do if you're Schwartz? Either remove the help from Hill to overload the strong side...or you allow the strong side zones to be stretched easily for big damage. The third alternative is to skew the LB coverage to that side and drop both the CB and S to that side deep (half field deep Quarters). But then you allow the TE, RB and TO to tear up the backside underneath areas. Schwartz tried several of these things and we got burned on a lot of them because he allows the offense to dictate the matchup and from that...they go to work. If instead, you matchup Pac on TO, they don't know if it's man or zone or blitz or what the D is doing because they can't dictate the worst matchup on the field and force the defense to protect it. Now, with Pac on TO, Hill on Glenn, ect., you don't know who's getting help, who isn't, when and everything is harder to read.

    Remember when I said Schwartz was too predictable? This is what I'm talking about. Also, this is painfully obvious near the goal line where the O can put their biggest guy on Pac or matchup their best WR on Hill.

    As mentioned above, placing them is part of coordinating a defense. If you're misaligned, it's hard to stop certain things. But formationally, there are strengths and weakness to each formation. When you look at your own player's strengths and weaknesses, you want to protect your weaknesses and force the offense into your strengths. We don't do this much. For example, if Starks can't handle a double team block, he should be lined up between the OC and OG where he's MOST LIKELY to get a double team block which will result in him being blown off the ball and the OG or OC (depending on the play) getting out to take out our MLB and poof...successful running play. If Starks is a good one gap DT, he should be playing a 3 technique (outside shoulder of the OG where he controls that gap). This is how you play players to their strengths and not place them in positions to fail. Similarly, if Sirmon is not great at taking on blockers, you need to try and protect him more by NOT penetrating the OL with your DT's...but rather have them control the 3 interior OL. I hope this is a simple enough example.

    2 points here. The Colts are rather unique in that they don't really try to stop the run with their basic scheme. Instead, they try for maximum QB pressure. What this means is that their DE's rush straight up the field to put max pressure on playaction passes and any 5/7 step drops. This means that OT's can push the DE's by and then attack the OLB's (including Thornton). Thornton played very well in this D so obviously he must be able to shed blockers to some decent degree of skill or he would have been obliterated in that D. That's my point about Thornton. The second point is that the Scheme of that isn't to stop the run...but ours is and we're getting the same result...a terrible run D. But we're not having our DE's rush right up field to attack all passers on every play. If we did, we'd expect to have a decent pass D. To put that into context, the Colts are worst against the run, but 3rd in passing yards allowed and have given up about a 1:1 ratio of passing TD's to INT's. We are 14th in passing yards but have given up about a 3:1 ratio of TD's to INT's which translate to a huge difference in QB rating against us.

    Point is...our scheme is not getting it done....either vs the pass or run.

    But this IS the point. We have players gaining experience but they're not getting better. We have 3 options. First, the player is terrible and will never be decent. Second, the scheme is preventing the players from playing to their strengths. Third, the coaching is not teaching these players how to play. I can already here the argument that LT will never 'get it.' But what about Starks, LaBoy, Odom, Mahelona, Waddell, Woolfolk, Gardner, Lowry, Fuller, Reynolds, and Hill (to name a few)? Are all of these guys terrible players (if yes, Reese should have been fired long before this and if no, then you have to take a harsh look at the coaching and the scheme). I find it extremely unlikely that all the above players are busts! And at least 4 of those players were taken on the first day of the draft.

    And one other thing. Ever notice how good defenses seem to have good role players and they are put in positions to play their roles...like a good pass rusher coming in and rushing the passer instead of having to take on a pulling OG to stop a running play? Outside of some creativity with our nickel back, we don't do this. And again, this harkens back to putting players into a position to utilize their strengths. If Bulluck has difficulty taking on blockers, how come we don't scheme around that?

    The point is not who would take and start one of those players, but which of these teams already HAS one or more of these players but succeeds by keeping that weakness hidden as much as possible.

    I'd say that Chicago has a couple of guys...Hillenmayer doesn't exactly scare me nor do either of their safeties Manning and Johnson. But they play good TEAM defense so these weaker players are not overly exposed. And that's not a middle of the pack D, but arguably the best D in the NFL. How about Leber and Smoot on Minnesota (top 7 in points allowed)? Or perhaps a better example are Bruschi and Junior Seau. Neither of those guys can really cover anymore...but you don't see that aspect of thier game being exposed.

    I wouldn't fire Washburn over the contain thing because I don't know the exact defense called and whether to blame the scheme, the coaching, the players, or some combo. However, we do know the scheme against Denver was not designed to specifically stop the bootleg cause then LaBoy or whomever would be in Plummer's face all day. That didn't happen nor was LaBoy benched for not containing the bootleg. And we saw the same thing repeatedly in pre-season.

    There were 3 things going for the Titans when Schwartz took over. First, we were maxed out on talent. Second, teams were afraid of our pass rush. Third, we had a culture on D of being excellent run stoppers. Over time, a few things changed. First, we lost accountability. Second, we moved to a more zone based scheme and lastly, we had a large personel turnover. The major players on D outside of Bulluck all left and with it...our dominance against the run. In the last couple of years, we had 2 more issues. First, Reese dumped salary...bye bye Rolle and Kevin Carter. Secondly, Schwartz is too predictable and people have caught on to what he likes to do and know they can outcoach him down the stretch. Also, without a dominant run D, the D is doubly exposed to the run and the pass. No one fears our run D nor our pass rush. No one fears our hardhitting because we don't hit that hard anymore. No one fears our 46 D because our scheme is more simple and easy to read than it is complex. And the guy calling the shots both is predictable and doesn't demand accountability.

    I think that about covers it.

    Gut
     
  6. Gut

    Gut Pro Bowler

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    A quick chew...

    So when Barry Sanders retired on the top of his game, he all of a sudden is no longer a talented back?

    How about Junio Seau who retired...amking him an untalented player and then starting for the Pats and playing pretty well.

    This definition of talent doesn't make sense to me. I call this what it is....production.

    Players usually fall into 1 of 2 categories...players with NFL measureables (right size, speed, agility, strength, ect) and players who don't (too short, too small, too slow, ect.). Both players can succeed because a player who truly 'gets it' can be better than one who doesn't....even if he has better measureables. Case in point, one college defensive coach once said...I'd rather have a 4.7 (speed) guy going in the RIGHT direction at the start of the play than a 4.5 guy going in the wrong direction.

    The first player has physical talent while the second player has more talent in the football smarts department. Of course even these players have to be within a certain range of physical talent to play in the NFL. No WR could run a 5.5 40 and succeed no matter how well he ran his patterns.

    So when I talk about talented players, I'm talking about guys with talent in either the physical side or the mental side or both. Even this is an oversimplification, but I hope you get the idea. Furthermore, we can get an inkling to how these players may translate into NFL players based on their physical numbers and their college production.

    Gut


     
  7. TitanJeff

    TitanJeff Kahuna Grande Staff

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    Then tell me. How do you measure talent?
     
  8. TitanJeff

    TitanJeff Kahuna Grande Staff

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    I believe he is good but I also don't see only five tackles a game as being something which has a huge impact on the run game.

    Help me with my history here but didn't Rolle always cover the opponent's #1 when he was with the Titans? I seem to remember that. So it isn't beyond Schwartz's reasoning to do this. Why isn't he doing it now? We can only speculate but I bet it has to do with the inexperience/skill of his CBs.

    What is your solution if Schwartz thinks the corners don't have the experience/skill to line up other than one side or the other?

    It's also an example how the lack of talent of your weakest links limits what you can do defensively. If you can't bring the DTs, then what impact does that have when a pass is called? Does that slight delay in the rush give the opposing QB that extra second to exploit your FS or #2 CB who has struggled all year?

    But when the Colts need to stop the run and scheme to do so because they don't have the big lead, their defense is exposed. Were the Colts playing bad scheme against the Titans in that game? I don't think so. The Titans were pounding them and there was nothing they could do to stop them. It boiled down to one-on-one matchups and the Titans OL was manhandling the Colts DL.

    Here's another example. The Jags are up 34-0 midway in the third quarter. Did you see anything to indicate the Jags wanted to do anything but run out the clock by rushing the football? I didn't see much trickery at all on the Jags offense but they gashed the Titans for another 78 yards on the ground.

    Where did scheme come into play here? Everyone knew what was coming. No surprises. Yet Schwartz gets criticized for not being able to stop a vanilla offense who just wanted to run out the clock? Tell me what could have been done differently?

    Agreed. But how much of this is on Schwartz and how much is on the players is my question. You make it sound as if Buddy Ryan stepped in as DC the Titans would rise to the top 10 and I don't think we have the horses to make it happen because this is a terribly inconsistent defense.

    I'm skipping ahead because I found this more interesting...

    I totally agree except for the accountability part which I'm not sure I fully understand. Are you saying players are not being told they are blowing assignments? If so, how do you know this?

    On your other points, the zone was a direct reaction to the lack of talent/experience. Remember 2004 and the injuries and that a number of backups were in. It severely limited scheme. Zone was the result.

    Then the cap purge. Again, scheme has to be adjusted to the holes and especially the inexperience.

    Is he predictable because he is limited as to what he can do because of talent and experience? I think he is. And I need to understand what you mean by accountability before I can respond to that.
     
  9. Vigsted

    Vigsted Starter

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    Talent, especially on a football field, is not measureable as such, you can just see it, it's almost a gut feeling. Pacman is what I call talented, you can just see that football comes natural to him. Hope on the other hand I consider more skilled, he doesn't exude natural ability, but has worked very hard to be as good as he is.

    I actually have the perfect example from my own league where a guy came in off the streets (former soccer player) and immediately became a beast at runningback. He didn't have a clue about football, didn't know the rules, but he was just naturally gifted running with the football (tackling was not his strong suit though).
     
  10. The Mrs

    The Mrs Crush on Casey Starbucks!

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    Hey, Keith Bulluck is one of the positives about the Titans defense!
     
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