what's wrong with the run defense

Forced myself to re-watch the game, including the lousy defense. It really was bad.

By the way, whoever claimed that we were good on 1DN through the game was watching a different game from the one I saw. (I think it was a quoted post from elsewhere.) We REPEATEDLY gave up 5+ yard runs or easy pass completions on 1 down! I saw very few 2 and more than 7.

Anyway, I am very poor analyzing defenses. I have a hard time diagnosing problems, since schemes bewilder me and it’s often very hard to evaluate a guy on a play without knowing his assignment.

But one thing seems clear. Lanes get opened on us, but then no one closes the door. I saw plays where, say, a DL would be pursuing upfield when it surely seemed he would have a good shot at closing off the RB if he pursued along the LOS.

Now, I hesitate to suggest this. But I am beginning to wonder if the problem isn’t our LBs. Especially JL.

‘Tree doesn’t always make the play. Well, he’s young and he is a play maker. He should be better, but has a history of tightening up at least a lot of the time.

JL? Man, he looks bad a lot. Wanders around. Gets blocked. Pursues late and without any speed.Ineffectually chases after RBs after they have roared past him and fails to get in on the DBs’ tackle.

I just have to ask, would our run D be better with a MLB who could take on blocks and stuff running lanes?

I mean, the answer has to be yes, right?

We all know that they value JL as a signal caller and so forth. But he’s a damn soft MLB. We pay a price for that I think.

And you know Wells is the same on the OL. He’s supposed to be the signal caller with vet experience. But he’s damn soft and a big percentage of our blown plays come through him.

A good team is strong up the middle, as they say. Well, with JL and Wells, we are anything but.

This is what most scouting reports said about Ogletree and it kind of shows:

Despite posting some gaudy tackling statistics (111 tackles in 10 games), defending the run is currently the weakest part of Ogletree’s game. He often lets his arms hang uselessly by his side, turning his shoulders and giving blockers free shots at his chest. He is not comfortable scraping in pursuit or working through trash, often losing ground to run around blocks and avoid contact.

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1609892-alec-ogletree-scouting-report-nfl-outlook-for-georgia-lb

To me, and this is just my opinion, it looks like our D is just tearing into the O’s backfield. Sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn’t.

It looks like our D overruns plays. I don’t really know how to explain that, but “gap responsibility” comes to mind. Maybe a little more “read and react” style would be applicable, instead of the “damn the torpedoes” style we’re currently using.

I don’t know. Our D just looks “too fast” upfield.

11 of 29 runs for zero or negative yardage.

This run defense isn’t terrible. It has breakdowns.

4 runs for 91 yards.

14 of 29 for 59 yards.

Now, you can’t just IGNORE the bad runs. But… out of 29 run plays, the Rams had 4 breakdowns. Without those breakdowns, they went 25 runs for 59 yards which would have been good for 2.36 YPC. Which is outstanding. And that’s how the run game generally played out.

So, the issue isn’t, can the Rams play run defense… they DO and DID play run defense. The issue is can they play it CONSISTENTLY. Because DeMarco Murray and that Cowboy OL will really make it hard to ignore the bad runs if the LBs don’t fill those gaps. Allow them 4 bad runs and Murray will have another 200 yard day.

Here’s hoping that the Rams are prepared to stop the Run… and subsequently don’t get burned by play action…

Rams searching for answers against run
By Nick Wagoner

http://espn.go.com/blog/st-louis-rams/post/_/id/11891/rams-searching-for-answers-against-the-run

EARTH CITY, Mo. — Despite the lingering stench from the St. Louis Rams’ Week 3 loss to the Dallas Cowboys last year, the team’s run defense turned out to be much better than it showed after running back DeMarco Murray ran all over them.

By the end of the season, the Rams were ninth in the NFL in average rushing yards allowed per game (102.8) and third in the league in yards allowed per attempt (3.7).

With all 11 defensive starters returning this year and coordinator Gregg Williams taking over, that group figured only to improve against the run. Through two weeks, that hasn’t been the case.

It’s a small sample size, of course, but in games against Minnesota and Tampa Bay, the Rams have allowed 171 yards per game on the ground, which ranks 30th in the NFL. They’re also coughing up 5.5 yards per carry, which also ranks 30th.

The reasons for the early regression are many, but the defense to this point has looked more like a group of individuals out to do it all more than handling individual responsibilities for the greater good.

“It’s just a lot of guys trying to make plays,” Dunbar said. “We talked about it this past week. It wasn’t a scheme thing, it was just everybody taking their turn… we’re not fitting it right. Somebody took their turn here and there.”

In other words, there have been many examples of players not playing sound assignment football and freelancing from play to play. As Dunbar points out, there isn’t any single culprit and, in fact, the film shows that almost everyone on the defense has been guilty at some point.

Perhaps most surprising, the young secondary has actually been the most consistent group from down to down.

“I think really the front seven just has to play better,” linebacker James Laurinaitis said. “There’s no excuses. Missed tackles are no excuse. When we have the opportunity to go and trigger and make plays, we’ve got to make those plays. I like the way that the front seven has been humbled this week.”

Missed run fits and blown assignments aren’t the only issues. Through two weeks, Pro Football Focus counted 27 missed tackles for the Rams. They had 18 in the opener against Minnesota, meaning they improved some last week against the Bucs, but not enough to keep little-known back Bobby Rainey from gaining 144 yards on 22 carries.

Beyond the tackling, the Rams also found themselves put in some odd positions. Tampa Bay had great success running the ball on second down, many times on second-and-long plays when Williams would dial up a blitz or Rams defenders would be anticipating a pass and get a run instead. With the line and linebackers a bit frustrated by only making one sack through two weeks, that means anything resembling a passing down has left the front seven a bit undisciplined.

“I think there’s a fine line sometimes when you’re in certain coverages where you have to say, ‘OK, am I going to play for the run here or am I going to play for the pass here?’” Laurinaitis said. “If I play for the run, I’m not leveraging the pass. If I play for the pass, I’m not leveraging the run.”

Any improvements or fixes the Rams have attempted this week will be put to their biggest test. After finishing 29th in rush attempts last year, Dallas has the look of an NFC West team with its physical and committed approach to running the ball.

The Cowboys have the fourth-most rushing attempts in the league heading into Sunday and are second in the league in rushing yards per game. Murray is off to his career-best start and has rushed for 428 yards on 51 carries in two previous meetings with the Rams.

For the Rams to have any chance at beating Dallas, they’re going to have to sell out to stop the run first and sort everything else out afterward. Until it gets solved, that has to be the plan.

“We have just got to get in sync with it, and I’m confident we will,” Laurinaitis said. “But that stuff definitely deserves to be talked about until we put the fire out. You can’t sit there, and if you told me before the year we’d have 170 yards averaged against us, I’d be like, ‘Get out of here.’ But that’s where we are right now. I think guys have really swallowed their pride and like, ‘Hey, we need to work at this; let’s go out and work at it.’ No excuses.”

================================
Laram (on GW’s aggressive scheme)

Williams aggression with blitzes.

I’m starting to put that info together and when he’s blitzing and shooting a gap, the offense is running mis-direction or counters right through the vacated area.

Shooting gaps and either getting sealed or running past the play, and the lb’s are missing tackles behind them.

That’s why I say that Donald should start alongside Brockers. Let Brockers tie up blockers and Donald get’s one on one.

He’s the pure 3-tech.
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Laram – Williams Defenses against the Run

Williams defenses against the run.
1997 – 27th
1998 – 21st
1999 – 22nd
2000 – 29th
2001 – 26th
2002 – 4th
2003 – 25th
2004 – 31st
2005 – 20th
2006 – 6th
2007 – 29th
2008 – 19th
2009 – 12th
2010 – 17th
2011 – 21st
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• This reply was modified 10 years, 3 months ago by wv.
• This reply was modified 10 years, 3 months ago by zn.
• This reply was modified 10 years, 3 months ago by zn.

My fear before preseason was that the blitz-heavy, risk taking style of defense would nicely take advantage of a strong front line, but it would pay the price when the young, unproven backfield was exposed. I did not think shortcomings would look the way they do, struggling to stop the run.

I feel like they can and will make adjustments, mostly because I’ve seen them adjust very well before. But this is a tough opponent to face in the midst of making adjustments, because they run and throw well.

I’d like to see a breakthrough on defense, one that makes me say to myself “OK, this is what we were waiting to see. This is the kind of defense they should be playing.” I’m talking three-and-outs, hard, sure tackling, turnovers, and frustrated opponents. I thought we’d be there already.

That’s cool, zn. He coordinated New Orleans’ defense for three seasons. One season at No. 24, one season at No. 25, and one at No. 4. In the season at No. 4, the Saints played twelve games against teams in the bottom fourteen of the NFL in offense, including two against the NFL’s worst offensive team, Carolina, and one vs. No. 31 (Arizona) And they did well against those teams. They faced exactly one top ten offense (Dallas). And then puking all over themselves in the playoffs against an offensively challenged 49er team. What would you expect? Color me dubious. I’m not a Gregg Williams fan. I don’t think he has proven anything. If he has proven anything it’s that he has a lot to prove. The bar is set high when you have a reputation as a defensive guru, and he is tripping all over it.

• This reply was modified 10 years, 1 month ago by HighPlainsDrifter.
• This reply was modified 10 years ago by zn.

wv wrote:

There ‘are’ people out there
who think the league has
“figured out” GW. I dunno.

Mike Martz was a great offensive coordinator at one time, but his ego got in the way. When the league caught on to him, he refused to adapt. He thought his system was bullet proof, and his stubbornness got him tossed on the scrap heap. Hopefully he is reserving a spot for Williams right beside him.

zn wrote:

wv wrote:
I dont like him much either,
but he was in charge of other
defenses besides the Saints.
So, if we are gonna look at history
i think we have to consider Buffalo
and Washington too.

There ‘are’ people out there
who think the league has
“figured out” GW. I dunno.

Personally, i have to wait
and see how he does in the second
half of the year.

He’s flunked the first half.

w
v

He didn’t have the personnel in New Orleans but still made it work best he could and one year was even top 5. I don’t count Buffalo because he wasn’t the coordinator. Either way, he has had top 10 defenses his whole career.

And, I don’t think anyone figured him out. So now the Rams lead the league in tackles for loss and they only lose because they make incredible game-turning mistakes, but their defense has been figured out? (?)

Unless injuries completely undermine them, they’re just going to get better on defense. What they need to just STOP is the boneheaded errors resulting in huge big plays. But that’s execution. It’s coaching if it’s the EXACT SAME errors game in and game out, but these guys just keep coming up with new ones.

Personally, when it comes to liking or not liking Wms, I think he did his time and gets another chance. People can disagree with that and I completely understand.

As far as ‘figuring him out,’ ive read some comments

that his blitzes just arent working. The blitzers
aint disrupting anything.

Now there could be a million other reasons for that
(if its trut) — but one reason could be,
the league has ‘figured out’ GW.
Your position is the league
has not figured him out.
Mine is, I dunno.

w
v

• This reply was modified 10 years, 1 month ago by wv.
• This reply was modified 10 years ago by zn.