 MONSTER POST! --- FIGURING OUT THE SECONDARY, BY WV RAM, RAMMED FOR LIFE, JAMES
JM, PROGRAMMER, JEFF, & GIG EM RAMS (March 16) |
||
| Back
to the Main Page FEATURES- The E-Zine's Quarterback Watch- -Front Office Debate- Ram-ble's Offseason Analyses Zack Neruda's FOD Analysis "E-ZINE" Fan Profiles- GRITS Ram Fan Smack Chick The HERD's home- RAMS Message Board Add yourself to The HERD's Official Roster (guestbook), if you think you are man enough! The HERD's ULTIMATE link page-add your favorite here! |
[Note-
Sometimes it is useful and interesting to get many views on an
issue. Extra eyes...to help our own. Agreement or disagreement, to sharpen our views.
Here, six posters discuss the Rams secondary, assessing its strengths and weaknesses.
Sometimes they diverge in their views, and sometimes they reinforce each other, building
toward consensus. Maybe you will find something of value in the discussion. Maybe you will
agree or disagree. Maybe it will just help you kill time in a long, dry off-season, a
month before the draft-which, for the true Rams fanatic, is reason enough! So...dig in.
-ZN] I. THE CHALLENGE---TOUGH QUESTIONS. BY WV RAM I don't know that much about secondary-play, but I do have eyes! And what I saw last year was a whole lot of passing yards given up by that secondary. Lots of third down conversions. Lots of long drives. Remember, that last drive by the Bucs and Sean King (the Bucs, for gawd's sake!). Remember Steve McNair completing about ten in a row? Remember what Steve Beurelein did to the Rams, and Gus Frerotte? So I guess what I'm asking is: aren't we all pretty much in agreement that the secondary was the weakest link on the team? (Followed by the O-line -- poor TE blocking and run blocking.) Is it the corners? Is Lyght only an aging, ordinary corner? How are Bly and McCleon? Do they need better play at strong safety or free safety? Will Little be an improvement? Is the solution Coady? Why does everyone seem to love him? IMHO, nobody in that secondary stood out last year. II. MIXED MESSAGES? BY RAMMED FOR LIFE 1. Figuring it out. DBs are the hardest position for fans to evaluate. For one thing, TV cameras seldom show the routes developing. So, even when you watch tape of the broadcast, you often cannot tell what is happening between the WRs and the Dbs. Some folks say corner is our weak link. Well, Chris Carter, opening his big, whining mouth after the Minnesota game, agreed. He said our CBs were our weak link. But then....he is a jerk who whines after losing. On the other hand, I will tell you that they were far, far better in 1999 than in 98. Well...I don't have answers here. All year long, the secondary drove me nuts. Not because it was bad, but because it was very good, then very bad, then very good ...I never felt I got a handle on where it stood. But, I did study tape of 5-6 games last year, and I can offer some partial observations. 2.The schemes. The secondary is also a position that is affected enormously by coaching schemes. And, in our case, the inconsistency of the pass D has a GREAT DEAL to do with coaching schemes. The very first thing to understand about our coverage of other teams's WRs was that it was wildly inconsistent. I mean, this is always true to an extent. Sometimes, DBs get burned. Sometimes they don't. However, if you closely watch our DBs, you will see them play with radically varying degrees of tightness. I have seen EVERY ONE of our CBs cover good WRs very closely. And I have seen every one back way off. A good portion of that is a call made by the D coaches. It begins with the CBs initial position. Are they "up" on the WR, ready to jam and aggressively attack those quick 1st 2 steps? Or are they "off" the WR 7-8 yards or more? Obviously, this varies with the calls: zone? man? Does the CB have help from the safety? If you watch our D from last year closely, you will notice something interesting--a pattern that repeated itself, maybe, 65% of the time. On 1st and 2nd down, we would attack the LOS with the CBs up, playing tight. This often, very often worked. Folks, we have CBS who CAN at least at times do this successfully. Many teams have no CBs who can get away with tight coverage. (Bly is great at this.) Frequently, we would put a team in 3rd and long--maybe 3 and 9 or so. Then, on 3rd down, we would back off. The CBs might start "up" on the WR, then back pedal before the ball was snapped into a soft zone. Again and again and again, we got burned on 3rd down conversions when we were in soft coverage. This also effected us late in games. A pretty large portion of the passing yardage we gave up was late in the game. Sometimes, it was garbage time: the Vikings, the Giants, etc. But, at times, we backed off and gave up yards in tough games--obviously, Detroit, but also TB. Some folks below pointed out that King did little until the last drive--when the D backed off. So, our DB play was closely connected with the over-all aggressiveness of our D. We so often played it safe, dropping DBs and LBs and going with a 4-man rush, giving mediocre QBs like King and Frerotte time and the soft underneath to move the chains. The 4 and 26 was only the most obvious example from among many. 3. Some provisional conclusions. * Fact: we gave up a very large number of yards last year. * Fact: a good chunk of those were garbage time. * Fact: more yards than you might think had NOTHING TO DO WITH GARBAGE TIME! We gave up yards to DET, to CAR, to BALT, to NO, to TB, even to SF at times when the games were in doubt. * Fact: against the 2nd best passing game in the league, we all but shut down Moss and Carter until garbage time--at which time we went to sleep and let them pass at will. * Fact: we generally defended the pass well on 1 and 2 down but weakened on 3 down. * Fact: Jenkins was playing monster back, not safety. Look at the film Much of the time he positioned himself as a LB. * Fact: we rarely, rarely got beat deep. What, 3-4 times all year? You CANNOT forget that important fact! We TOOK AWAY the deep ball for the vast majority of the year. * Fact: we had a hard time stopping people from moving the chains with possession passes. * Fact: at times, we shut pass offenses down completely. Just shut them out. * Fact: our defensive intensity rose and fell dramatically from quarter to quarter, series to series. 4. What does all that mean? I don't know. I honestly don't. Are the coaches backing off because they don't trust the CBs? Maybe. But that makes little sense when the CBs play so well on early downs when they play aggressively. Remember--the D coaches played to take away the run with Jenkins up. This reduces your pass D's coverage. Yet, if that is so, why was our pass D good in pass/run situations like early downs and bad when the run wasn't really an option like 3 and long or garbage time with a lead? My best reads are these: * Bly is a great play maker who can jam and jump routes with the best of them. That is a God-given talent. It means he will get burned some. Fine. Give him safety back up and let him make plays and frustrate the other team's quick slants and possession routes. This is a tremendous asset, one that few teams possess. I predict we will see the D evolve to let him play aggressively and have the FS rotate behind him to cover the deep ball. * Lyght is just slow. He is smart, a play maker, able to hang short with WRs pretty often--but he doesn't have the speed to stay with WRs when they go up field. Good as the nickel back. But I don't see him as worth a big contract over a number of years. I think signing him long term would be a bad personnel move. * McCleon. I rarely saw McCleon out-played. I saw him make a great number of plays and hang with some superb WRs. From what I SAW, in the Minnesota game, he played Moss extremely well. Whether he has up-side, I don't know. But if you look at his year, he gave up very, very little. We all remember the few balls he gave up--mainly to Detroit. I am comfortable with him. Point to more than a handful of plays where he got burned! On the other hand, I have noticed some say that they were at the Minn. game and saw Mac get beat. So if I get a chance, I will look back at the tape of McCleon on Moss. * Lyle is a superb football player, and is very, very smart. He is also slow. He has trouble getting to the sideline to give CBs help on the long sideline patterns. This is a factor in the coaches deciding to play up or go into a soft zone. (I HATE soft zones with every ounce in my body!) * Bush is an X factor. We saw him at FS, not really his position. he was OK. he made some plays. I didn't see great speed from him, and our pass D was worse when he was back there. * Jenkins is gone. I am not the first to say this. But he was an ENORMOUS part of our run D. With him being gone, our D scheme will change. I don't know enough to predict how. But we most likely need to try to stop the run this year with 7 men, not 8. We may find ourselves in 3 and short more often than last year--except for the Super Bowl. * Coady is a key, key player. He is very fast. He is said to be an excellent tackler. I envision him giving us the cover 2 support for our CBs that Lyle has trouble giving. 4. Looking Forward. The one position I would like the most out of the draft is a really nasty, hard-hitting SS. I still drool over that. I tend to believe that the issue is at safety, not CB. With Coady at FS and a nasty, Toby Wright-like guy who could cover TEs at SS, I think our secondary would be among the elite. Very, very few CBs in league history can just flat out shut down great WRs without a lot of help from the safeties. Deion. Green in his prime. Night Train Lane. We don't have CB who can shut a great WR down by himself. But we do have very good corners who can work together with good safeties to provide a very effective secondary. But the safeties need more speed! But when you have a very good CB, you can play him aggressively to challenge those fast-opening possession patterns that are so popular, especially with big WRs. With all but Hall of Famers, however, you must provide Cover 2 help from the safety if you are going to play those quick slants tough. Look at TB. They play zone, whereas we want to play man. But, their safeties are ALWAYS in position to contain and even challenge the long ball. This lets their CBs play more aggressively underneath, especially in the zone. That's why I like the idea of Bly + Coady--or someone with speed. Okay. No one knows if Coady will be a factor. He does, however, have a rep for great speed and sure tackling. Bly clearly plays the jam very well--but is vulnerable on the deep move or double move. But! Put those 2 together: Coady with great speed to back up Bly and let Bly play aggressively on the other team's top WR. Bly will drive the other team crazy on the possession routes, and when the WR tries to burn him deep, he gets help. With that foundation, you can then deal with the lesser WRs with other people. Very, very few teams have 2 truly top-flight WRs. Even with the Vikings, Carter is slowing down and can be contained and even somewhat defended more than he used to. So--Mac on Carter: Carter lacks the speed to burn him badly, and Mac should hold him to some possession receptions. If we still have Lyght, he could do it. Bly on Moss with Coady looking to help. That combination would, I think, really slow MN down. So---A lot of good pieces but not yet a secondary that clicks into place! 5. Final Note on Coady. Now, I don't want to mislead anyone! I base most of my hopes on Coady on things I hear. He did play well in some limited action along about Week 12 or so. Here's what I "know" based on reputation and feedback from Rams camp. * He is VERY FAST! That is a fact, as far as I know. I believe he was called "White Lightning" in camp by the other Rams. That's a tough crowd to impress! * He has a reputation as a tough hitter and sure tackler. In that couple of games in which he played safety, he made some very good tacklers. That's really it. Everything I heard from people about him in camp was very positive. And I believe the coaches like him. And the fact that he didn't play much last year does not bother me a bit. Vermeil does that, and things were crowded and out of kilter at safety. In this D, Giunta feels you need a year to two to really know what you are doing. A rookie safety won't do that much. At FS, brains, speed, and good tackling seem about all you need. So, I project what he might be. The Rams have made a habit of getting great value from developmental players. I hope he is next. I also feel limited by what we have at safety. Bush is limited and Lyle is slow. But Lyle is also very, very smart. Beyond that--who knows? But if Coady can't play, we have some serious drafting to do for 2001! I can't see us spending a lot on Lyle again. III. PLUSES & MINUSES. BY JAMES JM 1. Overall. What bothered me most of all was that the play in the secondary seemed to grow worse as the season progressed. Early in the year some of the break-downs you speak of were actually not, per se.....3 or 4 QB's just plain ole' got hotter than hell. Against Balt., Det., S.F., and others...I saw numerous passes completed that required pin point passing, or incredible catches, or both. Defenders WERE in good position. But as the season wore on this seemed to fade. In the second half of the season I saw wide open receivers and no defender in sight. The yds/rec stat can be very misleading...but I think in the case of the Rams it was telling. There WERE sustained drive against them, many of them. A sustained drive, in my mind, means moving the chains...say 3 first downs on one drive. Example..if your opponent starts on their 15, they can actually get 5 first downs and fall short of scoring. And moving the chains, which did happen against the Rams, especially those 3rd down long first downs, does make me ask questions. Scoring was low however. My worry is that unless the offense can control the ball, and score as early as they did last year....then - "IF" the secondary is in trouble we're going to see it early..and maybe too late. Although I expect the offense to be formidable in 2000, an equal performance is not likely. But there is good news even if our worst suspicions are true - - offenses will seek to attack early and deep if the Rams secondary is suspect, but at the same time, the Rams did extremely well against the deep threat. 2. The Players. Bly has all the potential in the world, but all to often depends on his athletic ability to come up with the "super" play....Bly positions himself with the best of them...it's what happens once the ball is in the air that causes him some trouble. I really think Bly plays "ball" too much instead of the man. With his abilities he can get away with it pretty often. BTW, this is a problem that good coaching and experience can overcome easily. In fact, there is no reason Bly cannot reach his potential. His talent is obvious even to the untrained eye. And yet, he has a way to go. McCleon, IMO...was one of the more consistent defenders. But I'm not as confident about him. Still, he seems to be playing well within himself and adapting to the defensive scheme of things with few critical errors in judgement...so I don't know that his overall talent is that outstanding, but it would appear that his perseverance and willingness make it more than likely he will be ok. Nice positioning....and improving. Lyght is another who positions himself very well....but I don't think he has the natural talents to always take advantage of that fact. Maybe it's his "age"..I don't know. Allen is quick, but has no instinct for how far to play "off" they guy when playing it safe, or the "timing" to make bat the ball away. I don't mean to say he's terrible, he isn't. But I don't think he's a guy you want "starting". I for one believe the heart of the problem is the safeties and not the CB's. Some of it self-inflicted, as Jenkins was told to play as he did, or at least not told to do otherwise. - Jenkins - not a cover man. I watch ALL the games on TV..so everything I say about the secondary is very speculative. The only SURE thing that I think I hit on early last year was that Jenkins was playing run first on nearly every play. So now I wonder about our run defense...it cannot be overstated how much Jenkins was a factor in this regard. But frankly...I think I would prefer bolstering the weak middle and playing tighter pass "D" in the crucial downs than maintaining the same level of run "D" efficiency. Naturally I would prefer both....and a blue chip SS would do just that. Coady - I don't know enough about him to say. IV. IS IT THE CORNERS? BY PROGRAMMER 1. The safeties are okay. First, some basics, Safeties are primarily responsible for covering zones. Unless of course, being part of a double-team which takes them away from those responsibilities, or blitzing. They're there to provide "Help".. On passing plays(man-to-man) the FS is primarily responsible for providing deep help. Our current supply of safeties are adequate for this. I wouldn't mind having a big hitting FS but they can do the job, and aren't as responsible for some of the poor secondary play as you might think. I don't think it's crucial the safeties have blinding speed, but it sure helps, for the reasons given. They must have very good speed. Still, I'm comfortable with our safety tandem going into next year. It's the CB's covering ability I'm concerned with.. My point is, the CB's have the primary responsibility to stay with their man. They can look for "help" from the safeties, although the strong safety, if not playing a zone is usually covering a 3rd WR, TE or RB... but a CB can't and shouldn't let go of his man and blame it on the safety because he didn't make it over to give him this help. I saw a couple of games at the Dome and watched the rest on the Big Screen.. to many times did I see our CB's blow coverage and just not get into position to make plays...In all fairness.. I saw some great CB play also.. but in general, we were average at best last year. 2. Looking at the corners. I fully understand that a CB isn't going to shut down WR's week after week, but you do want them to be positionally sound, as much as possible, safety or no safety. Next to the QB, I think a cornerback has the toughest position on the field, and the most thankless. IMO, this is the mark to watch in a good CB, not just interceptions or even passes defended. These guys will be out of position and make plays on poorly thrown balls or bad routing by the receiver. The best judge of a corner's talent is to "eyeball" his covering ability, and seeing how well he does on a consistent basis. I mean, I watch most of the games on TV like everyone else, we see the same things. I just stand out here alone on this one, but that's ok, I believe in what I say.. doesn't make it right or wrong. Just hope it all comes out the best for the Rams. So...the best way to judge a CB consistently is watching him at the point of attack, or what position he ultimately gets himself into to make the play. When the ball eventually reaches the receiver you can see how the CB gets himself into position... A CB has no choice but to play the man until the ball's in the air. Then he's got to react to the ball, while being conscience of his opponents positioning. You have to ask yourself...where is this defensive back on this play the moment the ball reaches the vicinity of the receiver and DB? Is he turned around looking for the ball ? Is he anywhere near the receiver? (Eg. biting on a pump fake). Is he committing himself to much? i.e causing pass interference? And if he's not constantly not getting himself into position to make plays, what's the cause ? Athletic ability? The scheme? Play calling? Allen's pathetic at positioning himself...and McCleon's not many notches above him, from what I've seen... I was at the Minnesota game.. and a helluva game it was... and IMO didn't play all that great. was able to eyeball him on a consistent basis. On several occasions he didn't get turned around for the ball and was beaten badly. Moss made a couple of those catches, but also, George didn't make a good throw on a few of those plays, or didn't throw Moss the ball. IMO, McCleon played Moss from poor to average, if scaling it. Still, I'm optimistic about McCleon, not because of his play... but because of his potential. 99 was only his first year as a starter. I hope he does better, for the Rams sake....I hope next year we see an improved McCleon.. and then I'll stop dogging him.. I really like Bly. This guy has shown some good athletic ability to get in good position. His downside, if you can call it that, is he takes big chances at times. But I like his aggressiveness. I think Bly "could" be a budding superstar.....time will tell. Also, IMO, Lyght was our best CB last year.. Period.. V. IS IT THE SAFETIES? BY JEFF M 1. Overall, the defense did well last year. The Rams do give up a lot of yards per reception---but I argue that yards/rec is not that important. I would rather have a low yards/pass att (which the Rams did). Against the Rams, it was hard for them to complete passes and maintain drives. This is how the Rams played defense. They did not let teams march up and down the field methodically and they did not let teams score very often. IMO, that is what matters. The way you play defense changes depending on how your offense does. The Rams not only almost broke the record for point differential, but they led the league in points allowed going into the final week. The defense was doing its job better than most teams have ever done. When the game was close at half (NO twice, NYG, 2nd SF, Det) the Rams came out and shut down the opposition until the game was out of hand. The only exception was the Detroit game. This also held true for the first 2 playoff games. 2. I, unlike most, am not worried about our CB play. We will be fine as long as we do not give Lyght a large contract. Sign him for no more than 1-2 years and let the young guys play. The problem with our secondary is not the CBs, except for Allen, but rather the safeties. They cannot cover the middle of the field or help out on the sidelines. This why we play soft at times and give up the underneath yards. I think we must sign McCleon to a long-term deal and not let him go. IMO, he may have played better than Lyght last year (everyone wants to talk about those 2 plays in the Detroit game, but if you look back, he outplayed Lyght for the whole game). Lyght will only get worse, and McCleon will only get better. McCleon will cost less money, which could be spent on another CB and maybe. Think of the two Carolina games and the Detroit game. McCleon gave up 3 big plays in those 3 games (The 2 at the end of the Detroit game and the missed tackle that led to Jeffers 71 yard TD). Lyght and Allen were victimized often in all 3 of those games (Lyght was actually beat far more in the Detroit game than McCleon). By the way, Bly sealed the 2nd Car game and the division title with his TD return. Bly has an enormous amount of talent, he could become our best CB since Gray. McCleon has only played the CB position for 4 years in his life and he gets better every year. This will only be his 2nd year as a starter and I think he will be better than Lyght this year. IMO---Lyght will drop off this year, while McCleon will continue to improve (this will be only his 2nd year as a starter and only 5th year as a CB ever). Also, Lyght just does not have the speed anymore to stay with the top flight WRs, unless he can get safety help over the top (that just happens to be our biggest weakness on defense). 4.5-5 mil/year for a player on the downside of his career may be a mistake if the contract is for more than 1-2 years. 3. Will they improve this year? Part of our problem at safety last year was the loss of Lyle. When he went down, our pass defense fell off some. Also, most of the passing yards we gave up last year were in garbage time (the only exceptions being the Detroit game and 2nd Car game). Little should be an upgrade over Collins in the Passing game. he has far more speed, both in rushing the passer and covering backs. The question will be how disciplined will he be in coverage or will they use him solely on blitzes and use Jones solely in pass coverage (this is what I suspect they will do). Thus, Little will only provide a pass rush on passing downs and really not help much in pass coverage. As a whole, the pass defense should be improved with the return of Lyle. On the other hand, do not know how much our run defense will suffer from the loss of Jenkins. The real question is how well will Bush play at SS. He should be better than Jenkins in pass coverage, but a drop off in run defense. Jenkins played a large role in this phase. If Bush comes close to Jenkins production in the rush defense, then we will have better safety play than last year. This is the one phase of our game that I will be looking at closely this summer and preseason. IMO, Bush will have a huge impact on how well this defense does next year. Well, the continued improvement of Wistrom, Carter, Fletcher, Little, Bly and McCleon may also have something to do with it as well. VI. IS THERE EVEN A PROBLEM? BY GIG EM RAMS The Rams D gave up quite a bit of yardage through the air last year. But when it counted they seemed to be able to be counted on. I can't find the exact number, but I remember hearing they held the opposition to something like a 65 QB rating. That is pretty good in my book. When it comes to the draft, I don't see CB as a real need area. Maybe someone in the later rounds to replace Taje Allen. I like McCleon, Bly, and Lyght. Lyght will be gone in a couple of years, but we should have Bly to take over. We can draft CB later in the draft/rookie FA to train for the nickel spot when Bly does start. I think we should draft another safety, but the draft seems pretty thin there. I would hope the Rams give Coady a shot at SS this year, even though Armey touted Bush in the press recently. Coady did play that spot at A&M and was very good. The one thing about Coady is that he seems to always be looking to improve himself (smarter/faster/stronger). I like Lyle a lot still and see him doing his thing for quite a few |
|