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The Seattle Seahawks waived starting inside linebacker Tyred Dodson today. He is their leading tackler.
This is the kind of stuff teams some teams do when they are struggling.
They break down the film, see where the issues are, and act accordingly, either by benching players or releasing them.
And sometimes a lot of tackles don’t tell the whole story.
Just like people around here tend to make a player into Mike Singletary because of big hits, but ignore what goes on in between.
The film don’t like.
You can’t listen to the outside noise. You gotta go by the film and act accordingly.
How many times have we heard people around here, after bad defensive games, and there have been too many of those, talk about just needing to improve technique and fundamentals?
That might apply to some, but there are other players, where the problems go deeper than techniques and fundamentals, and to keep rolling with them, thinking practice drills are going to change much, is Pollyanna thinking.
Some just can’t do the job. You have to reach that conclusion at some point to stop rolling with them as the losses pile up.
People are fast to blame Jeff Ulbrich for the Jets’ defensive struggles, and I get that because he’s the team’s defensive coordinator, and has been for three-plus years.
But I think the scheme, and some personnel decisions over the last couple of years made based on loyalty and personal relationships, instead of going by the film are killing this team, and a lot of that isn’t on him, it’s on the former coach and some personnel people who appeased him.
While Ulbrich’s elevation to the head coaching job hasn’t made much of a difference, he inherited a broken culture and a flawed defensive roster.
Ulbrich was the co-defensive coordinator with Robert Saleh, and they were running Saleh’s scheme he brought from San Francisco, which is outdated.
The Indianapolis Colts and Chicago Bears run the same scheme. How’d that work out for Indy, Chicago and the Jets on Sunday?
Unless you have a dominant defensive line, which none of these teams have, it’s hard to have success with this scheme. It’s front-driven, and if the front doesn’t dominate, there are plenty of holes for the opposing offensive coordinator to take advantage of. It’s a very static, predictable scheme.
I wrote about the scheme issues in the new issue of Jets Confidential Magazine, available now.
One reason the Jets run defense is so bad, aside from personnel deficiencies covered up by watching tape with rose-colored glasses, they play a concept that coaches describe as “playing the run on the way to the QB.”
So they are attacking up field with pressuring the QB in mind, and if the team calls a run, they have to sight adjust and switch to run defense mode.
Well, here is the problem with that – you have to have great instincts, like a Nick Bosa, to do that consistently well, and I’m not sure how many guys on the Jets front have those kinds of instincts. Obviously, I’m not expecting any of them to have Bosa’s talent, I’m just talking about the ability to switch from pass rush to run defense on the fly, smoothly. That is hard.
And what you see with the “play the run on the way to the quarterback” approach are Jets defenders running past running backs and quarterbacks too much, shooting upfield too far.
Look, I’m not here to defend Ulbrich. He needs to step it up as interim coach, but he inherited a cultural and defensive dumpster fire, and while I’m not totally exonerating him for the defensive issues, he was running Saleh’s scheme, with Saleh’s position coaches, and with a Douglas defensive roster, heavily influenced by Saleh, who made some bad suggestions to the GM.
November 11, 2024
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