What we are missing is the defensive philosophy late in games to pressure the other team. Too many times we play soft "bend but don't break" and we give up TDs. It used to work before when our defense was almost impossible to score TDs in the red zone. But with the rule emphasis of no contact after 5 yards, we can no longer mug recievers and let our pass rush develop. The read and react defense is a recipe for failure with rule changes that has tipped in favor of the offense and too many times that's what we revert to when the game is on the line.
If you look back at the big games we lost since we won our last SB, we've given up go-ahead TDs because of the bend but don't break defense.
2006 AFCCG: After the first half where we played their receivers tight, we come out of halftime playing a soft zone. Indy comes back.
2007 SB: If you look at their last 2 TD drives, we played soft zones on both drives.
2008: Our biggest game against the Jets OT loss, we play soft zone when we needed to make a stop. Favre picks us apart.
2009 Indy/Broncos: Soft zone when we needed stops.
We need to change our defensive philosophy when the ball game gets tight. It won't matter if we have Champ Bailey back there, this read and react defense late in games is going to result in losses more often than wins.
