I take what happened to the defense recently as an accumulation of things.
1. Losing Jenkins hurt because his replacements have been up and down, in and out, hurt and demoted and etc.
2. There have been additional injuries depleting the secondary, like Davis in for Alexander, and in the SF game, Joyner being out (the Rams are different on defense without Joyner).
3. Losing Quinn hurts. This is put well by the poster Blue n Gold on another board so I will just paste in what he said: “This year, no edge pressure…Hayes in not a starting LDE, he’s a backup who plays well as a DT in nickel. He does a good job on run downs at end, but needed a DPR to play LDE and we did not have it. Longacre and Fox are not answers. need DE with top pick, 2nd rounder…if there is a good one.”
4. In the SF game, the D was just worn the hell out by the time the final minutes came around. The offense needed a first down in the last 4-5 minutes to keep the defense off the field. This is the BIGGEST problem for the entire team all year. Scoring and first downs drop badly after the 1st quarter. This is a theory of course but to me that says Boras, 1st time coordinator, never figured out how to adjust effectively to defensive adjustments. I am not saying the time-honored message board myth that “he DIDN’T adjust”–that’s nonsense, all teams adjust. But Boras it seems to me does not adjust EFFECTIVELY to defensive adjustments. So the offense is always fine in the first quarter but not after that.