TheChemist

Hey guys,

Thanks for the warm welcome. Hopefully I won't be incurring the wrath of too many folks on this forum. I'll stick to asking some questions and let you vets display your knowledge. Unless, of course, someone asks an opinion about a particular player.......Then all bets are off. ;)

So, with the aquisition of T-Buck and Ambrose, what type of defensive coverage do ya'll think the Saint's will be best? Zone....Man....? And why?

Thanks again

rusta

in the past venturi has favored man coverage which i think has hurt us somewhat

this year supposedly we are going to a more zone oriented defense to allow our younger players to react to the ball more naturally and cover the age and slowing makeup speed of our aging corners

personally i would like to see us go to a type of cover-2 in which the corners don\'t play man like most cover-2\'s but fall back into zones, if our d-line is as good as they are hoping then we should be able to get enough pressure on QB\'s (possibly with the help of a single LB) to make the zone effective, ie hurrying the QB enough for him to \'lose\' defenders downfield, with this scheme we wouldn\'t have to worry about our aging corners and our safeties getting burned (one of T-buck\'s supposed weaknesses), this also opens up our LB\'s to pick up short passes and scrambling QB\'s better

BillyCarpenter1

I don\'t think we will man up very much. Watching dale carter play last year was scary for me. He got beat often and bad. I know someone is going to say he didn\'t know the defense. Yeah right!!!!!! His job was to cover the receiver not read his jersey number on the way to the end zone. I think dale carter is ......what\'s the word i\'m looking for. Oh yeah...........WASHED UP!!!!!!!!!!!

lumm0x

I hear we will play zone this year. I think the majority of the thought behind this is to assist both Jones and Mitchell as first year Saints starters to better integrate into the pass defense and allow the action to develop in front of them. The blatant draw back to zone coverage is that if there is a lack of a pass rush, all it does is allow a QB to pick you apart in the short to medium range pass plays. Hopefully our new younger D-Line will improve this area. Sullivan and Smith should be keys to this if they can get a center push and draw the plays outside and let Grant and Howard do what they do best. The more errant throws those four can force, the more opportunistic our young athletic defense will become.

Carter and Ambrose are both very capable veterans, and Fred Thomas, although undersized, is a warrior. I think zone will allow both veteran CB\'s to not highlight any lack of step they may incur and let their experience be more of an asset. Both would work well in man but we face some fast and big WR in our division that can outsize and outmuscle. With some younger QB\'s being groomed in the NFC South, zone is less readable and more likely to exploit inexperience in a QB.

By the way....welcome.