Audiotom

Byrd totally wiffed on the last defense on some critical plays against the Cowboys

coming from 20+ yards deep to stop someone from taking it all the way still results in a 10 yard gain and first down

I would rather see us gamble and play tight

Byrd has been laying some hits on occasion but he is just being totally inappropriately utilized

ikecomp

That is a fine point you made. I was rewatching some of the games from this year and I noticed something very strange. Our defense is playing scared every game. Every time I see our DB's playing in coverage either they play too deep, they don't try to reroute guys and I have yet to see them try to gamble and undercut a ball. It's astonishing. It seems they are content to just try to run with a guy and hope the qb doesn't throw to them.

One other thing I've noticed (although I've mentioned this before) is our linebackers are completely useless in passing situations. I believe we have the slowest linebackers in the league. They don't play zone coverage very well and fail at shadowing guys. What makes it worse is that they don't even try. I can't think of more than 1 or 2 holding calls they've been responsible for all year which means they are just letting guys run around with no obstruction.

At any rate, I believe some of this is coachable which means Ryan needs to start emphasizing it. This defense needs to take the gloves off and start putting hands on guys and gambling. The end result can't be any worse than what we're doing now.