Defense has been getting more talented each year, yet players are all regressing. These past three seasons their yards per play allowed rank 30th, 32nd, and 21st. And this is despite Hutchinson, Mcneil, Anzalone, and Branch all grading well per PFF.
Brian Flores and Jim Schwartz turned MIN and CLE’s defense around in one season, and their fans will tell you their coaching is outperforming their talent. At this point, they have to let go of AG, right?
Have you noticed how the offense gets less “creative” when backup o-line are playing (aside from the veteran Glasgow)? That’s part of why the defense doesn’t seem creative. For one, there’s less creativity in defensive alignments anyway, since you have to stop the offense. Secondly you need experienced players who have a deep understanding of both the defense and the offenses’ expectations to be able to fool them by disguising coverages. Kirby, Branch, and Campbell don’t have the experience so you have to be extremely careful in how you do it. Jerry Jacobs and Tracy Walker really lack a lot of flexibility to change what they do as neither is great outside of their primary role. Sutton can and has stacked the box this season and our defensive ends have dropped into coverage on blitzes to varying degrees of success, only Hutch and Julian have the athleticism to make that coverage effective with Houston out.
People all the time say the defense isn’t creative enough, yet they’re unable to make any concrete suggestion as to what that might look like aside from vomiting up the word “blitz” as if it’s some sort of panacea.