Williams happy to wait for season to unveil his defense?

I don’t know why a coaching staff would wait until the regular season to play his defense for real. And Williams has been in coaching a long time, opposing teams know what he does on defense anyway.

If we are doing something unique on defense, Williams should take it for a test drive in the preseason. See if it works. See if his players can execute it. Why wait until September to find out?

I share these concerns. Game three I need to see something. If it takes two games for this defense to gel…..in this division, it’ll all be over

Mac: I really think they are going to “unveil” this defense like a new hot rod at an Auto Show …

Or like the Eagles Offense last year. If we all know Greg Williams at all, it will be a statement game. He’ll want ESPN to LEAD with talk of the Rams Defense…

Which means he really won’t care much about the preseason insofar as he won’t want to give ANYTHING away.

I’m with Snow on this. I just do not get this reasoning. It’s a theme discussed in another thread where guys are arguing that the defense is being intentionally held back in some sense. The reasoning utterly escapes me.

Why on earth would any coach reign in a defense? I just don’t understand that way of thinking. Sorry, Mac.

WV: Well, yer not gonna see Aaron Rogers, so, i imagine the D will look significantly better.

See, that consideration seems to me to be irrelevant. Every time I see a description of those 1st 2 drives, it’s always about Rogers. But what I saw was no more than 50% about the QB.

They ran the ball through us like we were hanging strings of beads. That isn’t because of Aaron Rogers.

And ultimately that’s the big problem with the “we don’t want to give anything away” explanation–I’d say excuse–of what’s been happening.

The only thing that COULD make sense would be some sort of trick deployments, probably involving blitz and rotation packages. But they have little to do with showing stoutness against the run.

Why would anyone not be determined to show stoutness against the run?

And why would any coach think that that sort of toughness can simply be turned on by a switch when the season starts?

You know, maybe 20 years ago, I was watching the Vikings in pre-season. They had been down a few years, but they’d picked up some defensive talent–the John Randle generation. In pre-season, they just completely stuffed people. I tried to tell myself, well, it’s just pre-season. But what I was seeing was the emergence of a truly elite defense.

Then, in ’99, Trent Green and then Kurt Warner gave promise of an emerging superb offense during pre-season.

I see our Offense showing signs of real quality, though perhaps not elite status.

How can we just tell ourselves that this supposedly superb defense which has looked so flaming bad in 2 games is suddenly going to be top tier?

I know I’m in a minority on this, but I think people reassuring themselves that there is nothing to be concerned about are engaging in serious wish fulfillment.

Hope I’m wrong.

RFL: “And ultimately that’s the big problem with the “we don’t want to give anything away” explanation–I’d say excuse–of what’s been happening….”

Yeah, we just disagree. I think Williams will run a blitz-heavy attack, with DBs challenging the WR’s
fiercely within 5 yards. I also think he’ll mix things up a lot.
Thats certainly NOT what they did in the first two preseason games.
And yes, i think there is every reason to not show the schemes they are going to play.

At any rate, i really wanna see how GW and the D
handle Mr Peterson of the Vikings. I’m real
curious about how that will go. If i’m not mistaken
he ran for about a million yards last time.

w
v

wv wrote:

If i’m not mistaken he ran for about a million yards last time.

w
v

A million is an exaggeration.

Adrian Peterson v. St.Louis, 2012: 24 carries 812,000 yards 1 TD long run: continues to this day

In his chat JT said Wms directly answered how much of his defense he uses in the pre-season:

someone asked Williams the other day how much of his defensive playbook has he exposed in the preseason. His answer: 22%

My (safe) bet is, “22%” is not a real figure. It’s a metaphor for “I dunno maybe about a 5th of it.”

Mackeyser wrote:

Well, I stand behind my assertion that I think that they really want to make a statement in that first game.

I REALLY, REALLY think they want to stuff AP and I’m willing to bet that the coaches are already thinking about that Run D…hard, as in a LOT. Like, Gregg Williams would love for AP to share something with Barry Sanders and have the Rams hold him to -1 yards.

I think Gregg Williams would like the Seattle and SF coaches, especially, to look at the Rams D after the Minny game and just stay up nights worried about it, because…wow. So. Much. Pressure.

While teams know about Gregg Williams’ defenses, he tailors much of what he does based on his personnel. So, HOW he brings pressure is part of his “magic” based on his players and rotation. So, yeah, that first game will be full of wrinkles, as will the first few games, I suspect.

I really do hope that the D lives up to that aspiration and just makes Minny blow snot bubbles while giving the rest of the league’s coaches the vapors. We’ve waited long enough as fans to see exactly that.

Sounds good Mac but not realistic. Sanders’ style was running 50 yds. to gain 10. AP is a power back who can break tackles and once in the secondary he is faster than our DBs. If we could hold the Vikes to a couple 3 and outs early and jump on them by 10 to 14 pts. early that would go a long way in taking AP out of the game. When they have to throw here comes that pass rush we’ve been waiting for. I don’t think we can look past the Vikes. They have a good OL,Peterson and Patterson. I don’t know much about their D but I know the William’s wall is gone as is Jared Allen so Sam and Co could have a big day

The master of snot bubble creation