Quote Originally Posted by beveaux1 View Post
There is a lot of truth in this. The loss of Shields last year changed the draft strategy for this year. If Shields had been on this team, there would have been no need to draft a CB early- an OLB/edge rusher would have been the obvious pick.

Last year there was an abundance of well-thought-of CBs in the draft class with the assumption that this year's draft would be much more marginal for CBs. Thompson chose to pick a CB rather than an edge rusher. His next choice was a hybrid safety who could play ILB patterned after the Falcons and Deion Jones. Both picks were need picks because our ILBs lacked speed to cover RBs and TEs. During the off-season, he signed House for depth at CB and during preseason, after watching the play of Fackrell and Elliott, signed Brooks to provide edge rush when Matthews and Perry were gassed or hurt.

As we all know, every CB that was supposed to play in base, nickel, or dime defense, with the exception of Randall was injured. Most required placement on IR. At OLB, Matthews only missed one game, but Brooks and Perry have been injured more than they've been able to play. The result has been a lackluster at best pass rush. Surprisingly, when they've been healthy, the pass rush has been good. It just hasn't been good in more than 20% of the games.

I suppose a case could be made that Thompson didn't supply the components for this defense to succeed. I just have a hard time seeing what else he could have done. It's easy in retrospect to say that he could have drafted Watt and waited until this year to get a CB, but CBs have a longer development time than edge rushers and this year's class in CBs may not be as strong. Also, in hindsight it's easy to say he should have ponied up for a free agent edge rusher, but which were available and how well did they do this year?

Also, how much cap will he need to sign Adams and Rodgers and will he have to use this year's reserve to do it? The question to me is with Burnett, Dix, Randall, Martinez, Matthews, Lowry, Clark, and Daniels, how well should a defense perform? Should it rank 30th or below in 3rd down efficiency, red zone efficiency, time of possession, and number of drives with over 10 plays?

If the answer is that it should do better than that, then that's a coaching problem.