vid: Peter King on the Rams, 8/18

King just assumed we’ll have a Top 5 Defense.

I do not share that assumption. From what I saw against OAK, we’ll have the same problems we had last year–talent not translating into performance.

There’s a running play in the OAK game that illustrates this. In the replay, they show the overhead middle of the field view. You can see the horrible deployment. I’m not gonna take the time to pin it down, but, in brief and based on my memory …

JL is deployed well to the right, Tree over the center. Brockers is right/

AD is left of the guard, and a DE out left. Leaving a big gap in the middle.

AD then stunts LEFT and gets far upfield. Completely unblocked … and completely out of the play. An enormous lane opens, with no Ram challenging it. Tree gets tied up, and JL must lumber over from well right to pursue to the left side. He makes the tackle 10 yards upfield.

OK–off the top of my head. But the gist is simple: Williams deployed his talented D front in a wholly unsound set, then stunted them away from the middle, inviting a big running play. Our guys had no chance to battle their way to a stop. Just a complete surrender of the middle.

Then there are the plays in which an OAK receiver was catching the ball at around 9 yards just as our CB arrived from playing about 19 yards off the ball. Well, we didn’t get beat deep. 1st down, though.

I refuse to invest much time going on and on about this stuff. And I’ve never been able to get much interest in it here anyway.

But, I’ll simply get on my Cassandra soap box and say this.

Greg Williams coaches unsound packages, and we get burned over and over. He is still doing it. Deployed in these packages, our talent cannot get the stops it should get. It will NOT be anything close to a Top 5 defense deployed this way.

So, don’t expect much. Until you see significant signs of change. What would they be?

1) Sound, balanced deployments, including stunts, across the LOS that challenge the gaps and don’t leave exposed lanes.

2) Enough pressure on the short throws to let our natural pass rush get some heat going.

3) Tough, competitive performance that makes 3rd down really HARD for the opposing offense and generally gets us off the field, dramatically cutting the long drives we allow.

Those are the hallmarks of a good defense. And apart from a brief run of games last season, that is NOT what we have shown under Williams.

Could all this change? Sure. And I hope it does.

But I do not trust Williams and will not trust him until I see him start to deploy a defense that can do 1-3 above. He showed all the hallmarks of the old incompetence in OAK. And I will not expect Top 5, not Top 10, maybe not top half performance until these things change. And even then, I’ll figure that he will be very likely revert to his old, gambling, inept ways.