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Some say it was because they got back Bob Sanders. I think they played some below average offenses in the playoffs. The only good offensive team they played was the Pats and we were able to score on them. Other than that, who was it? Jacksonville, Baltimore, and Chicago (the Grossman year).
They didn't so much improve as they got a bit of swagger from playing sub-par offenses.
Last edited by Sicilian; 11-28-2008 at 08:55 AM..
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I didn't pay a whole lot of attention to the Colts defense that year, but I know they added Booger Mcfarland late that year. Again, not sure how much he influenced the improvement but sure looks like he had an impact. Plus Sanders missed much of the first half of the season.
Found some good stuff from Troy Brown on the Defense in the "Felcher" mailbag. Hm.
Quote:
“For me just watching them, they're playing a little soft in the secondary,” he said. “And if I'm Bill Belichick, I understand where he's coming from, `Let's bend but not break. Let's not get beat too quickly.' But if I'm a player, I'm standing there saying, `Bill, you're paying me to play cornerback for you. Let me get up here and challenge some of these guys. Let me take some of these guys on. I can stop these guys from making big plays against us.'
“(That's) as a player. That's just me talking. Because I (would) take it as an insult that you don't trust me, that you don't think you can go out there and blitz these guys or put pressure on these guys, put some pressure on the Favres and the Chad Penningtons, and not give up 400 yards passing. You don't trust me enough to go out there and do my job. It's an insult to me. That's what some of these guys (should) do, step up to the plate and say, `Bill, let me lock down somebody one-on-one.'
“You watch these games. They rush three guys, and it's almost impossible to get any pressure on the quarterback....If you rush five guys, then you're going to leave a couple of guys one-on-one out there, and these quarterbacks are doing a great job of finding (those matchups). Whatever it is, it isn't working. Maybe you just start blitzing six or seven guys and line up four guys across on the receivers and, hey, take a chance.”
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Other than that, who was it? Jacksonville, Baltimore, and Chicago (the Grossman year).
They went against Herm Edwards in the first round, which goes along with your point. They lucked out bigtime not having to face SD that year and the NFC was trash.
In that case getting Sanders back was huge but Dungy also did a heck of a job coaching up his youngsters over the course of a season. He also had the good furtune of us not getting Rodney back in time from a late season injury, facing a team with Reche Caldwell as it's #1 in the AFCC and then matching up against a seriously dysfunctional offense in Chicago. There is often a little luck of the draw involved.
They shutdown KC and Baltimore two weeks in a row and then shut down the Bears in the Super Bowl. I hate the Colts as much as anyone, but you gotta give them credit. They held the Chiefs to 8 points after everone thought that Larry Johnson would run all over them. They held the Ravens to 6 points the next week which was key since they couldn't do anything on offense except score field goals. They held the Bears to 10 offensive points in the Super Bowl. The defense only faultered in the Pats game giving up 27 offensive points. Unfortunately, the Pats defense played even worse in the second half.
The Colts improved because they shured up their run defense which was one of the world in league history in the regular season.
In that case getting Sanders back was huge but Dungy also did a heck of a job coaching up his youngsters over the course of a season. He also had the good furtune of us not getting Rodney back in time from a late season injury, facing a team with Reche Caldwell as it's #1 in the AFCC and then matching up against a seriously dysfunctional offense in Chicago. There is often a little luck of the draw involved.
They did totally shut down the Chiefs with Larry Johnson (although I think Herm gave up on the run too quickly) and the Ravens. They held both teams to single digits in scoring. Let's give the Colts a little credit. Even against a bad offense, holding them to less than 10 points is pretty good.
What nobody has mentioned is the potential return of Adalius Thomas bolstering the pass rush. The defense began tanking as soon as he went down with his injury. He was having a monster year before that injury, and if he can return somewhat to form we should see increased pressure on the quarterback.
The 2005 defense came together in a big way late in the season, improving from a bottom 5 unit to a top 5 unit over the month of December. Some of that was the return of Bruschi, some of that was the emergence of JAG or young defensive backs within the system. Our defensive backs have looked awful thus far, but I haven't lost faith that Wilhite and Lewis Sanders can at least help settle things down if they can stay healthy for the rest of the season.
From a defensive standpoint the results have been mixed at best. I have been waiting on some type of scheme change for a while now but it has not materialized and I find this unwillingness to adjust, troubling. When Pees decided to pressure Farve in the Jets game, the results were immediate and highly effective. Then they stopped and Farve was able to sustain an 8 minute drive towards the end of the game. Other than this 1 scenario I have a hard time thinking of another situation where a significant ingame adjustment was made?
What I do know is that our secondary, as it is currently constituted, cannot succeed playing 8-10 yards off the line. This scenario has been consistently exploited by our opponents offensive coordinators. Particularly on third and long!!!!
Our D line has demonstrated that they cannot get sustained pressure on the QB. When you combine this with little to no blitzing and the secondary giving large cushions to the receivers on third and long, you have the answer as to why our 3rd down D has been so poor. I think our defensive coaches have been a part of the problem by not being willing to adjust. For whatever reason, Pees seems very slow to make changes to the game plan during the game. The defensive coaching philosophy seems to be very static and this has surprised me this year as much as Cassels success on offense. And I can't help but wonder what exactly has Dom Capers role been this year?
It is perplexing to say the least!!!
I think that the D can improve.
This secondary is not so bad we can't afford to send anyone else. Like Brown said sending 3 isn't going to stop anybody. You know why he knows? Because back in his days when guys like McGinest and Vrabel would get after you, you made mistakes. Hell Troy Brown can tell you this by playing behind them!
Bill deserves heat on this one. It's no mystery that when we pressure Favre we dominated them that quarter. When we didn't, he killed us. Even in the Colts game. Peyton Manning was able to get 18 points in just 25 minutes, this defense never came close to touching him all night. Bottomline is we need to scheme for more blitzing, and ocne we do that this D will go where ever it goes. Maybe it's only a top 15 unit, but that's better than this unit currently. Any improvement is good improvement, and I hope facing a team that like getting their QB hit a lot in Pittsburgh we unleash some of this.
Re: Can our D improve by scheme/act of will?
Linear Mode
