Our defense is a fraud.

zn wrote:

The thing others keep coming up with is, players learning to play this D. Fisher spoke of misfits (which amounts to incorrect reads).

Are you saying it’s something else? Or that THAT (misfits) should not be happening?

I get that you;re saying the D should have started out at a higher level if it’s going to be elite. You didn’t like the way things were going during the pre-season games, and don;t like them now, and to you, if I follow you right (I is an old misreader from way back), that means something more fundamentally wrong is happening. Is that a fair summary?

Whatever’s wrong, it better get fixed before they play the Eagles.

I appreciate the opportunity to make sure we’re communicating. Really do.

I don’t know that I am saying there is something more fundamentally wrong than what it appears to be. I offer neither diagnosis, prescription, nor prediction. I dunno nuffink.

I just feel that what IS is bad and needs to be seen as being bad. You’re right that I was unhappy in PS, and I just think that what has happened has been pretty consistent from the 1st PS game until now. It just keeps happening.

As a fan and part of a community of fans, I get frustrated when people keep speaking of the defense as if it is what everyone thought it would be rather than what it currently is. I see so many comments that simply assume that it is a superb defense the failings of which can be passed off on all sorts of, well, excuses. They need more time. It’s a new system. Other teams are scheming for them. Yadda, yadda, yadda. To me, these are very lame attempts to avoid saying that the excellence of this defense remains at the present moment a theory rather than a manifest reality. They have consistently played well below the great hope we have of what they will be.

These ways of talking about the unit avoid “blame.” I think unfairly. I think the coaches and players deserve blame for what they are doing out there. Now, of course, blame can be a suspect concept in sports. But then, that’s what competition is all about. You do well in competition and you earn glory. You underachieve and, competitively speaking, you’ve failed. Judging this unit by its theoretical reputation, it is manifestly failing right now.

Now, I have no real opinion about what the blame should specifically be. I THINK the talent is good, but the results don’t remotely match the general assessment of what it is. Schemes? Tactical decision making? Preparation? Intensity? I dunno. Maybe it’s the “Wide-9” people speak of. Maybe it’s a matter of blitzing. Maybe the LBs aren’t up to it. Who knows?

I guess, speaking to my friends here in this community, I would invite us to remember what we all know in our bones. There is such a thing as a defense being fundamentally sound. I don’t have to explain that. We’ve all been watching the game a long time, and we know what it’s like for a team to earn that reputation: they’re tough, they’re sound, and they make it consistently difficult for opposing attacks to run the ball, move the chains or score points. Think of opponent defenses, the ones that scare us or at least give us serious pause before and during games. SF. Sea. Pitt. Balt. etc.

Well, REMEMBER THAT STANDARD when you look at what this supposedly excellent defense of ours are doing right now. By that standard … we ain’t even close. Those defenses do not lose battles on the field down after down, 1st down after 1st down, series after series the way ours is doing. They just don’t.

Maybe they’ll start winning those battles. But it hasn’t happened yet. It got waxed by the Vikings and barely contained a lousy TB offense. It just isn’t good enough. If it were year 1 in a team rebuild from nothing, the red zone toughness might be encouraging. But for a unit supposedly reaching for excellence, it is not acceptable. It just isn’t good enough.

Well, I am sure that I am repeating myself obsessively. I guess I am old Ram fan who learned to understand the game watching Deacon and Merlin and Isaiah and Jack, and I refuse to accept a Ram defense this soft.