Originally Posted by
flippy
Im not sure I'd put so much blame on the secondary. Take away Hampton, Harrison, and Foote out of the front 7 and that created huge problems getting after the QB, forcing mistakes, and making tackles. Going from Harrison generating pressure and making a ton of tackles to JJ doing next to nothing was the biggest drop off. Then McClendon not being able to control the LOS and collapse the pocket freed up linemen to get to our ILBs making them less effective. It also hurt the pass rush. Just look at how often Woodley (when healthy) went right by the QB with a huge pocket to step up into.
Then you take away Foote and almost play Troy at ILB and leave Clark often as the single high safety and Clark's never been a coverage guy and he definitely slowed down. That puts added pressure on the CBs. And I'm not sure Tez stepped up like everyone expected.
It was a domino effect. But I'd say the biggest missing pieces were our NT, ROLB, and ILB in that order. And if the front 7 could have tackled and got pressure, I think we would have been ok on the backend. Of course, there's going to have to be some turnover and new blood in our secondary. But I'm not sure I'd be ready to pin our lack of success on that unit. Actually if Tez can play to the level we think he's capable, that unit could quickly turn into a strength on our D. I think Clark's the only one who's visibly slowed down and become less effective on the unit.
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