Bears Interview TE Candidate

[madlithuanian]

Well said. I was saying similar in the same thread, but didn't see your response until after I posted.

 

The Cover 2 still works, you just have to be creative with it and have good personnel.

 

Can that not be said of any scheme? But there in lies the problem. We did not have the right personnel (as you said) and yet didn't alter what we did. We continued to get killed on 3rd and long, and yet continued to do the same thing.

 

You say the cover 2 still works but you have to be (a) creative and ( have the right personnel.

 

Going w/ "b" first. Even if Urlacher did not go down w/ injury, do we have the right personnel? Don't most cover two schemes have great pass rushing DLs? Indy has Freeney, not to mention Mathis. Minny has Allen. What do we have. But beyond the DL, do we have the secondary? In particular, don't most cover two D's have a very good FS? I don't think, even if healthy, we have the personnel to play the cover two, and to me, that means we should be adapting our scheme more to fit the personnel.

 

As for point "a" this is a huge issue of mine, and a key reason why I feel our D has tanked since Rivera. Say what you will about him, but he simply did more in terms of creativity. He would mix it up more between man coverage and zone. He was more creative in blitzes, rather than simply always seeming to send Urlacher up the gut. I think overall, our D was simply less predictable. Compare that to last year when we always seemed to do the same damn thing based on situations, which just made the job of the offense easier.

 

I agree a change in coaching can help point A, but I am not sure we are close to having the right personnel to satisify point B. We do not have an elite pass rusher. Even if Harris returns to his old form, which I think is highly doubtful, has Brown ever proven capable of taking advantage? We don't even know who our LDE will be, but I am not sure how optimistic we should be that we will have a great pass rusher from that side. And next to Harris, what great pass rusher do you see. We simply don't have a great pass rushing DL, and that is the first problem, and a big one. In the secondary, we lack a FS. It is a nice thought to believe we will find one in the offseason, but w/o a high draft pick and a very limited FA, not to mention in Angelo's 8 years, he has never found one, how optimistic should we be?

 

Overall, I do believe talk of cover two is widely over-rated, as we just don't play it that much. At least, not nearly as much as so many talk about. But to me, it is more about the general scheme rather than specifically saying cover two. We play mostly zone defense, but most reports I recall on Bowman considered him best as a man coverage guy. I think the same could be true of tillman. Further, while there is more risk involved, playing zone (especially starting way off the LOS) only exasperates an ineffective pass rush as QBs find quick, easy targets. If you play more man and press coverage, you take away the quick stuff and force the QB to hold the ball longer, which could lead to more pressures.

 

[AZ54]

Prior to this season I believe we were one of the better defenses at stopping the 3rd and long. Now I realize we absolutely sucked at it this year but one of the strengths of the cover 2 is the ability to shut-down and prevent teams from getting big-yardage.

 

This season we unfortunately just didn't have the personnel or the right play-calling in 3rd down (Urlacher not being there hurt a lot cause none of our other LB's are as good as he is in pass-coverage).

 

But that is why Lovie is no longer calling the plays. I do think people would be surprise to see how little we use the Cover 2 the problem is we just didn't get a pass rush and had mediocre players to be honest.

 

The Cover 2 still works, you just have to be creative with it and have good personnel.

 

I'm pretty certain the last time we were good at 3rd and long was the Superbowl season. After that it's been downhill.

[nfoligno]

I think the misconception may be between 3rd downs in general and 3rd and long. I don't have the stats in front of me, but I think we were actually a good overall 3rd down D last year. We were poor, I think, in 3rd and long (though not as bad as this year) but our overall 3rd down D wasn't so bad. Even that though is misleading, as I think we gave up a ton of 1st downs because we didn't force teams into 3rd down situations as often. You have to stop a team on 1st and 2nd down before you can even get to 3rd down, and we sucked in that regard.

 

I'm pretty certain the last time we were good at 3rd and long was the Superbowl season. After that it's been downhill.