Maybe its not all Trgos fault. MAYBE......

[Snake]

Thinking about it we did have a good D-line this year and Trgo was a D-line coordinator before. Really our Problem was our CBs this year just like a few seasons ago that could not stop the pass if there life depended on it. I feel that its the Job of not only the D coordinator but the CB coach to fix things like this and it didnt happen. Most of our points given up were cause of our CBs and not all of our lines fault. We now know pep was taking plays off cause he could have cared less how the team did and the line was playing thin this year. IDK but this is just another idea of why he might be keeping his job or staying for one more season.

[Mesmer]

The best part of our defense was our linebackers. Our defensive line was average, and so was the secondary.

The problem came because the "good defensive line" couldn't create any pressure, and we were ripped apart. While Ken Lucas has lost a step, and Godfrey was just a rookie, you can't blame it all on the secondary.

Trgovac is not a defensive genius, and if Fox is approving everything he does then neither is Fox.

[SCpanther]

I agree with Mesmer. The D-line was average, and nothing more. They had a decent number of sacks over all but they couldn't consistently pressure most opposing QBs. Consistent pressure is the key to throwing a QB off of his game.

That still doesn't absolve the secondary of guilt, because the relationship with the D-line is reciprocal. If the secondary covers guys better then that forces the QB to hold onto the ball longer. Of course, it's hard to make the opposing QB hold onto the ball when your CBs start 8 yds off of the WR.

[Snake]

Maybe that had to do with a thin line and peppers taking off plays. I mean can you say he didn't disappear in some games. I mean we had almost no rush up the middle with the loss of Jenk but we got pressure in alot of games at the start. On the other hand our secondary was just flat out beat in some games from the start.

[SCpanther]

Maybe that had to do with a thin line and peppers taking off plays. I mean can you say he didn't disappear in some games. I mean we had almost no rush up the middle with the loss of Jenk. On the other hand our secondary was just flat out beat in some games.

That might have had something to do with it. Although, I don't believe Peppers takes plays off more than the average player. I'm just saying the D-line wasn't that good, whatever the reasons may be.

[ckad79]

It was heart. That is what we lacked. Our defense was ranked among the best, the first part of the season but fell apart towards the end! After the bye week, not just our secondary but even our d-line was an absolute joke. Our offense is what kept us in it --- even during the great win at home against the Bucs, when everybody was jumping for joy, our defense allowed Garcia to right back into game driver after drive.

Teams play harder towards the end of the season... trying to land a playoff spot. The defense needed to step up and play harder down the stretch and that was when they were at their worst. The numbers prove it...

A lot of teams start out strong and then fall apart. It happens all the time.

I blame heart. I blame Turocrap on not commanding his troops to not look deep in their soul and find extra strength to fight with. It's not talent, we have talent... it's a lack of drive & heart... and our coaching staff lost focus with their troops. That is why I want Turgo gone, I think our defense has lost all respect for him. He's been here too long and they don't much care about him. They need new blood... new direction.

[Snake]

That might have had something to do with it. Although, I don't believe Peppers takes plays off more than the average player. I'm just saying the D-line wasn't that good, whatever the reasons may be.

No it was not a great line at all. We had a huge void left at DT when Jenk left and Lewis IMO is just a role player. I think it had more to do with the line being so thin and spare in talent we had to over work our starting 4. Get more people and talent and our rush should be better. Johnson and even Brayton were bright spots on the line IMO that we can build on.

[Cyberjag]

I remember when Henning was still here and all everyone did was pile on him on these boards. Then Davidson comes in to install his "flex-blocking" scheme and surprisingly enough, we don't really get it done on offense. Everyone's quick to say that it's because Jake is out, but the line was healthy all year and we never really got a running game going. This year we overhauled the offensive line and got some real talent out blocking for Williams and Stewart. Surprise, surprise--we break all our franchise running records and the offense just rocks! Meanwhile, Henning is doing great things in Miami.

Point is, it's not all Trgovac's fault. Just like Henning and his stupid draw plays, Trgovac calls soft and safe zones because he's forced into them by the situation and the personnel he has. Brayton's a borderline bust in Oakland who tries hard as hell and has a good motor, but wasn't really effective early on. Peppers is supposed to be a football God and in the first few games this past season he's handled with single coverage by backup tackles. At tackle we have Kemo, and no one will ever mistake him for a pressure guy. I love what he does, but in this scheme he's a real liability in the passing game. Then there's Lewis, who's just about the opposite of Kemo. Simply put, this is not a line that you build a defense around.

So when your defense starts with pressure from the line and you're not getting much, what do you do? Over the course of the season as other teams figure you out, you need to start covering for the lack of pressure with progressively more complex schemes, but at some point it will come down to skill and depth. Until the Giants we were still a top ten defense. Think they would have run all over us had Kemo been healthy? How about losing Lewis in the fourth? We were really thin, and got exposed late.

I think it gets better, a lot better next year. We're going to draft linemen and sign them, and we're going to devote some serious time to developing quality depth back there. The offense has been getting a lot of love over the past couple of years, this time it's Trgovac's turn.

I'm surprised he's staying, but I believe he can get the job done so that's not the worst thing that could have happened to us.

[bLACKpANTHER]

I remember when Henning was still here and all everyone did was pile on him on these boards. Then Davidson comes in to install his "flex-blocking" scheme and surprisingly enough, we don't really get it done on offense. Everyone's quick to say that it's because Jake is out, but the line was healthy all year and we never really got a running game going. This year we overhauled the offensive line and got some real talent out blocking for Williams and Stewart. Surprise, surprise--we break all our franchise running records and the offense just rocks! Meanwhile, Henning is doing great things in Miami.

Point is, it's not all Trgovac's fault. Just like Henning and his stupid draw plays, Trgovac calls soft and safe zones because he's forced into them by the situation and the personnel he has. Brayton's a borderline bust in Oakland who tries hard as hell and has a good motor, but wasn't really effective early on. Peppers is supposed to be a football God and in the first few games this past season he's handled with single coverage by backup tackles. At tackle we have Kemo, and no one will ever mistake him for a pressure guy. I love what he does, but in this scheme he's a real liability in the passing game. Then there's Lewis, who's just about the opposite of Kemo. Simply put, this is not a line that you build a defense around.

So when your defense starts with pressure from the line and you're not getting much, what do you do? Over the course of the season as other teams figure you out, you need to start covering for the lack of pressure with progressively more complex schemes, but at some point it will come down to skill and depth. Until the Giants we were still a top ten defense. Think they would have run all over us had Kemo been healthy? How about losing Lewis in the fourth? We were really thin, and got exposed late.

I think it gets better, a lot better next year. We're going to draft linemen and sign them, and we're going to devote some serious time to developing quality depth back there. The offense has been getting a lot of love over the past couple of years, this time it's Trgovac's turn.

I'm surprised he's staying, but I believe he can get the job done so that's not the worst thing that could have happened to us.

:hurray: optimism, i like it!!!

[Urrymonster]

It was heart.

Gotta disagree here quite strongly. We have some seriously determined and competitive players. Even the lazy players in the NFL are driven by a competitive nature so pretty much every player has drive and determination based on something, be it money or desire. Fact is none of these guys would still be in the NFL if they didn't have an over-whelming competitive and determined nature. There are exceptions and they are usualy the freak of natures. Calling out heart and determination is something that you would preach to a group of kids or adolescents because their skill sets are non existant. They have nothing to rely on except hard work and thus that is what you preach to them.

NFL teams as so very finely matched that it is no secret that the team who has the least injuries, especially late in the season is often going deep i the playoffs. The second thing that seperates teams is play calling. You can have the hardest working players in the world but the coordinator can read the game wrong or is simply out thought by his opposition. Nothing the players can do then.

Frankly I think this recent defense simply got worse as the season went by merely due to lack of quality depth. As an organisation we focused on the offense last season due to the opportunities in free agency and the draft. On the defensive side free agency was bleak and the draft was non existant. So it was inevitable that the teams who had invested in defense up until this season would have an advantage. We hadn't and thus we were stuck with very mediocre depth at the DL and in the secondary. Even as the injuries piled up our LBs were not as deep as we originally thought.

This lack of depth forced our coaches hands. They knew they were thin and had to adapt a plan that would not self destruct the defense. Personally I feel the coaches used this year to properly and correctly groom Beason & Godfrey without over exposing them. That's just my opinion though.

Fact is the scheme we had this year is a million miles from what we are used to and that was simply forced on us as we did not have the personal to employ what our coaches would have used in the past. We could not rely on the DL to get pressure all season as they were being relied on far far too much and when the starters were spelled or injured the drop off was ridiculous. Without that constant pressure aggressive man coverage would have been suicide. You can't leave your CBs on an island one on one with no pressure as simply NO corner can cover a decent WR for 5 seconds. Man coverage can only really be used if there is only one threat and if the DL can generate pressure. Simple fact is our coaching staff just thought our roster could not handle a more aggressive scheme. Maybe they were right, maybe not. We will never know.

If winning in this league was purely down to heart as you claim, then Tyler Brayton would be getting the contract Peppers is going to get come Feb.

[Godman459]

I remember when Henning was still here and all everyone did was pile on him on these boards. Then Davidson comes in to install his "flex-blocking" scheme and surprisingly enough, we don't really get it done on offense. Everyone's quick to say that it's because Jake is out, but the line was healthy all year and we never really got a running game going. This year we overhauled the offensive line and got some real talent out blocking for Williams and Stewart. Surprise, surprise--we break all our franchise running records and the offense just rocks! Meanwhile, Henning is doing great things in Miami.

Point is, it's not all Trgovac's fault. Just like Henning and his stupid draw plays, Trgovac calls soft and safe zones because he's forced into them by the situation and the personnel he has. Brayton's a borderline bust in Oakland who tries hard as hell and has a good motor, but wasn't really effective early on. Peppers is supposed to be a football God and in the first few games this past season he's handled with single coverage by backup tackles. At tackle we have Kemo, and no one will ever mistake him for a pressure guy. I love what he does, but in this scheme he's a real liability in the passing game. Then there's Lewis, who's just about the opposite of Kemo. Simply put, this is not a line that you build a defense around.

So when your defense starts with pressure from the line and you're not getting much, what do you do? Over the course of the season as other teams figure you out, you need to start covering for the lack of pressure with progressively more complex schemes, but at some point it will come down to skill and depth. Until the Giants we were still a top ten defense. Think they would have run all over us had Kemo been healthy? How about losing Lewis in the fourth? We were really thin, and got exposed late.

I think it gets better, a lot better next year. We're going to draft linemen and sign them, and we're going to devote some serious time to developing quality depth back there. The offense has been getting a lot of love over the past couple of years, this time it's Trgovac's turn.

I'm surprised he's staying, but I believe he can get the job done so that's not the worst thing that could have happened to us.

Great post!! :thumbsup:

[Snake]

Gotta disagree here quite strongly. We have some seriously determined and competitive players. Even the lazy players in the NFL are driven by a competitive nature so pretty much every player has drive and determination based on something, be it money or desire. Fact is none of these guys would still be in the NFL if they didn't have an over-whelming competitive and determined nature. There are exceptions and they are usualy the freak of natures. Calling out heart and determination is something that you would preach to a group of kids or adolescents because their skill sets are non existant. They have nothing to rely on except hard work and thus that is what you preach to them.

NFL teams as so very finely matched that it is no secret that the team who has the least injuries, especially late in the season is often going deep i the playoffs. The second thing that seperates teams is play calling. You can have the hardest working players in the world but the coordinator can read the game wrong or is simply out thought by his opposition. Nothing the players can do then.

Frankly I think this recent defense simply got worse as the season went by merely due to lack of quality depth. As an organisation we focused on the offense last season due to the opportunities in free agency and the draft. On the defensive side free agency was bleak and the draft was non existant. So it was inevitable that the teams who had invested in defense up until this season would have an advantage. We hadn't and thus we were stuck with very mediocre depth at the DL and in the secondary. Even as the injuries piled up our LBs were not as deep as we originally thought.

This lack of depth forced our coaches hands. They knew they were thin and had to adapt a plan that would not self destruct the defense. Personally I feel the coaches used this year to properly and correctly groom Beason & Godfrey without over exposing them. That's just my opinion though.

Fact is the scheme we had this year is a million miles from what we are used to and that was simply forced on us as we did not have the personal to employ what our coaches would have used in the past. We could not rely on the DL to get pressure all season as they were being relied on far far too much and when the starters were spelled or injured the drop off was ridiculous. Without that constant pressure aggressive man coverage would have been suicide. You can't leave your CBs on an island one on one with no pressure as simply NO corner can cover a decent WR for 5 seconds. Man coverage can only really be used if there is only one threat and if the DL can generate pressure. Simple fact is our coaching staff just thought our roster could not handle a more aggressive scheme. Maybe they were right, maybe not. We will never know.

If winning in this league was purely down to heart as you claim, then Tyler Brayton would be getting the contract Peppers is going to get come Feb.

Good post this very well may be true.