I’m glad it has but why has the defense come together now?
The starting corners have both played the past two games for the first time this season and the secondary looks like it has improved a great deal to me. The soft zone stuff seems to be gone and coverage seems to be tighter. Is that the main reason? Or, did Williams and staff ‘figure out’ how to use their personnel? Maybe the players have finally figured out Williams schemes?
IMO? They were learning a new defense with 3 things slowing that down.
1. The secondary is young. Younger units just take longer I think. You’re right that that got magnified by injuries…and if anything the replacements were even younger.
2. These old coaches now have far less time to install things in the off-season. That’s the new CBA…it limits practice time. There’s a vid on here somewhere from the week before the game where McDonald talks about all the extra meetings they had this season trying to fix things.
3. A Wms. defense is as complicated in its own way as a McDaniels offense, so that just compounds the whole thing.
So, young defenses with less time to learn a complicated system make HUGE mistakes until they learn the system. Blown coverages mean you don’t know where to be, and where you’re supposed to be will depend on variables the offense gives you. It’s like sight adjustments for young receivers.
The problem was, before, when they made the huge mistakes, they would tank. Somehow the coaches beat that out of them, because they did not come anywhere near tanking this week.
They also improved their tackling, which to me just means they’re now playing and not thinking. They just react like they’re supposed to react. Makes for a more confident player.
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