Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris Meck
See, here's the thing. What you're not understanding is this:
After last season's defensive shit-show, we blew it all up. Sent Houston and Ford and Day-to-Day Berry all packing. Hired an entire new staff, and switched the scheme entirely. On the fly.
So early in the year, they were still feeling out the scheme, and the staff is still identifying player's abilities and how to best utilize their strengths and neutralize their weaknesses. It's a culture change that hasn't taken hold yet.
Then there were the injuries. Frank Clark played the first half of the season unable to feel his hands. Chris Jones missed several games. We lost a starting DE, and then we lost his back-up. We had to play a rookie DT, and early on, he was getting whooped. But every week he got a little better.
The turnaround started against Denver, who'd won two straight and was running the ball well. We lost Mahomes early in that game, and we still smoked them with a guy who was coaching high school football a couple of weeks before.
The defense was getting it.
They shut down Dalvin Cook. It looked like they were on a roll, it was all clicking. Then they ran into Derrick Henry in week 10 (game 10) and were a little less disciplined and it cost them. Henry ran for 180 (like 68 on one play that was just a gap discipline issue) and we lost.
But the lesson was learned. And it has not happened since. Eight straight games. That's half a damned season.
And we grabbed Pennel mid-season. And we grabbed Suggs, who still has some gas left in the tank. And Clark is healthy. And a healthy Jones is the best interior lineman in the NFL not named Aaron Donald. And rookie Saunders knows what he's doing now. And Pennel is an immovable object. And Derrick Nnadi is tough too. And Kpassgnon had two sacks last week.
It was always going to take some time to install a new defense with like 8 new starters and have it perform well.
It took about half a season.
So yeah, looking at things the back half of the season is how you SHOULD view this defense.
I guarantee you Shanahan will.
If you don't, well, that's just you being stupid.
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Here’s the thing, nobody cares about those stats. It’s almost like you’re trying to convince yourself that you are this new and improved defense.
Personally I don’t care. Football is played in the field.