Originally Posted by
run pMc
MLF was pretty pissed after the ATL game at the run defense as well. I think he's feeling some heat about that and rightfully so.
This is going to sound like both an excuse and a broken record, but young players are going to make great athletic plays and also stupid boneheaded ones. I think that's a contributing factor to their uneven performance.
There is a certain amount of this that is on the coaches - in terms of the game plan, the development of young players, the teaching of scheme and making sure they are following the rules of the scheme and playing with good fundamentals.
Beyond that, the players have to execute and if they are being sloppy, playing hero-ball/guessing, or just not playing with proper technique they will look bad.
I think Joe Barry should take some blame for this -- they often played with 2 DL when DET was running and didn't adapt. They played better in the second half and forced some punts, but by then they spotted Detroit 27 points.
More often I thought the player execution was not good enough. Quay was both good and bad (mostly good, but he's still not showing the instincts and reaction speed I'd like to see). McDuffie is a backup and replacement level guy pushed into action. GB's DL lost more than it won at the LOS, and the team that is winning there and resetting the LOS should be able to do what the Lions did, namely, run 40+ times for over 200 yards. Colby Wooden might be a nice player in Year 3, but right now he's probably 275 and can't hold up against 2 DET OL running Duo at him. Davonte Wyatt is still not great at run defense. Slaton and Clark are their best guys but you can't play them 80% of the snaps. Savage is tackling better but he and Rasul gambled a few times and guessed wrong. They didn't have Jaire and even Valentine is banged up. I could go on and on, but I saw a DL that struggled to get off blocks and ILBs that struggled to read the hole and fill it by meeting the RB there at full speed.
Offensively they didn't have a smart plan but they struggled to run the ball anyway. Short/quick passing game might have helped, or more screen or plays to work the defense laterally. Love was holding the ball and on a few sacks had players open and didn't see them, so maybe it was a bad game for him or maybe he got flustered by the rush ... or disguised coverage. Either way, I didn't think the offense looked competent in the first half, and I wonder if that's on MLF or on Stenovich.
I don't see a scenario where they bring Barry next year. Maybe Brandon Staley gets cut loose from LAC and decides he wants to coach this defense instead of sitting around and getting paid...but it won't happen until end of year when Barry is gone.
This won't be the last stinker we see this year...it's a young team playing .500 ball, which is about what I expected.