I actually think the defense improved this year over last year. Last year we couldn't get pressure on the QB even when we blitzed. The first part of this year it was the same thing all over again. Then, about the middle of the year, something mysterious happened: we still coudn't get much pressure with the front four, but suddenly our blitzes were working much better.
If you look at our stats, the db's and lb's seem to have had a pretty fair amount of sacks. That is encouraging to me. In other words, if we can get better results from just three spots (both tackles and the end opposite Mario), our defense could be much improved next year. It was actually a pleasure finally watching our defense force QB's into bad throws and bad decisions. That's something we seldom saw before the middle of this season. I wish I could put my finger on why it happened. Some have given Dunte most of the credit, but I'm not buying it. That's because we had poor results almost all last year, even before Dunte got injured. I'm wondering whether something concerning coaching happened to make us improve. Maybe Kubiak got more involved and started changing some of the things Smith was doing. Maybe Bush got more involved. Maybe it was because we were giving more playing time to guys like Adibi, Deljuan Robinson, and Bulman. Anyone have any theories about this?
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12-30-2008, 12:54 PM
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