Byrd
 

I see a lot of people down on him. I get it, he doesn't look like the player we hoped he would be. Adding insult to injury we have key Saints players we had to let go to sign him and JG on other teams having a good year.
He isn't producing but the guy hits hard. Its really really hard to evaluate how well any of our DBs are doing because they are not getting any help whatsoever up front. Like I said in another post, you can have an entire backfield of Richard Shermans but it wouldn't matter if your line gave the QB all day to throw and continually let players by to get into the secondary.
Maybe we should have focused more on the D line this offseason instead of safeties.
It all starts up front. If you want to build a good defense you have to start there and build backwards.

Re: Byrd
 

Not all of Darren sharpers picks for us were when the D line got great pressure

Ball hawks have the instincts to know where the QB will go, I haven't seen that from Byrd

Yeah our D line is very very poor this year, but I haven't seen his instincts on display that show he's even in a good position to make a play on the ball

I hope I'm wrong but I think we overpaid for him, the bills knew it aswell

Re: Byrd
 

pressure or no pressure, Byrd sucks so far. I dare anyone to argue that. Took a terrible angle last night and missed let the opposition run right by for a large gain. He is not even close to be in position to make a play that could possibly result in an INT...don't even get me started on Vacarro. through 4 weeks, worst safety combo in league, and that is putting it nicely.

Re: Byrd
 

Byrd sucks because he has to play linebacker and safety and had no idea what the Saints call a "safety" is really a hybrid player who roams and watches the d-line because opponents regularly blast past the d-line and our LB's. Most other NFL teams have cometant down linemen on defense and presentable LB's. We've never replenished positions like LB with comparable replacements since Fujita left, and now Vilma.

I mentioned this in a blog post I wrote in the blog section of our website if you guys want to read it:

http://blackandgold.com/blogs/halo/424-mia-our-defense-has-never-been-same-since-we-didnt-replace-scott.html

Re: Byrd
 

Ahh the good old days with Scott Fujita as our outside LB who would consistently seal the game with an INT, especially in 2008, he did it like 3 times for us that season.

Re: Byrd
 

Going into sunday night with Minnesota killing Atlanta I thought our hopes to redeem ourselves were there and the team would be up and taking no prisoners

that is not what showed up last night

The d bought their own hype from last year

where did our rush 4 with great pressure pass rush from last year dissolve to? They destroyed the Colts in the pre-season then gone

Byrd and Vaccaro certainly looked great on paper

why are they constantly giving 20 yards cushion?

THe team is too busy trying to get cute and strip balls when a solid tackle is what we need

I wanna see Payton and Ryan do some ass kicking and fall back to last years system that worked

Re: Byrd
 

And all of these should be simple fixes. We can see that so its not like the coaches don't. All this **** boils down to ****ty fundamentals. How about focus on making a tackle before focusing on takeaways. How about playing close to receivers instead of 20 yds off. Its obvious something is wrong. Even Brees looked like he had already given up when he sat there and watched the D on that first drive. I really think the team is imploding and about to start turning on each other and pointing fingers.

Re: Byrd
 

Byrd looked like the only one even attempting to make a play last night on some plays. He's got the attitude. To me it looks like half scheme/ half of it is no pressure up front. They put him 20 yards away from the ball. No one would make any plays if they play that far off the ball. The other half is when there is some coverage the d line doesnt get there in time.

Re: Byrd
 

Darren Sharper did...

Re: Byrd
 

Byrd is 45 yards in the other direction of the ball, lining up on the other side of the midfield logo from the line of scrimmage, on almost every play. If the other team suddenly randomly decided to pooch punt the ball to him, Rob Ryan would be hailed as a DEFENSIVE GENIUS.

Maybe Byrd is a playmaker, a difference maker, I don't know, but seriously -- half the time there are people sitting in section 141 of the Dome, that are closer to the action than Byrd is.

Re: Byrd
 

That's what I saw. I won't watch it again so someone will have to watch the dreaded game file and confirm. On critical 3rd downs I saw Byrd flying off into la la land, deeeep down the middle of the field.

All the while the crossing middle always open 7 yards out, our safety is 40 yards off covering a deep pass before the play even starts.

I have no idea what they see or what they are doing out there!

Re: Byrd
 

And when they do that it's like the Saints D are playing 10 men on 11. It really really is. No wonder they are getting carved up.

Re: Byrd
 

I've said the same thing every game we've played this season from the opener against Atlanta. On defense, most downs we look like a team missing a player, like we are only playing 10 players on defense. Either a LB seems missing, a DB or safety seems missing... I can never seem to put my finger on it and in different formation the void appears to be in other places.

It's baffling. I can't be the only person who feels this way, which concerns me. Like we have a broken joystick on a video game and 1 player flies off somewhere and we can't do anything about it.

Re: Byrd
 

I can't figure it out either, I do know we have 0 push up the middle, our lb.'s can't cover and our secondary has to play front7 because our front7 aint'. Last night was an embarrassment to me and not only the D, Brees throwing behind recievers all night, our O-line looked like they are bound for an old folks home, our recieverss can't catch a cold and if they could they would fumble, piss poor showing as a team in my opinion,. No improvement nowhere, no how!! Made me red in the face from being MAD!!

Re: Byrd
 

Byrd is pretty much our last line of defense...and it's not good when 4 of the top 5 leading tacklers are DBs. He has taken a lot of bad angles so far and whiffed on a lot of tackles. On that 28 yard TD run by Murray he looked like a tackling dummy....straight trucked with little resistance.

Re: Byrd
 

I can't blame Byrd...I blame these terrible plays being called...it's like we're giving cushion EVERY play

Re: Byrd
 

I think Byrd and Keenan Lewis are great but EVERYONE else in the secondary is AWFUL including Vaccarro. Lofton is our only LB consistently by the ball. Galette-who knows? Hicks-either looks totally unblockable or worthless. Cam Jordan-playing hard-but not in the backfield as much as I thought he'd be. Anyway I see Byrd flying around, batting balls and trying hard. I have no complaints about Byrd. I've been waiting for teams to attack Vaccarro cuz he's slow and they have been with much success. . No one will mention it cuz he's our golden boy but he ran the same combine 40 as Harper. Just saying.

Re: Byrd
 

Didn't seem to bother him last year. Just sayin'

Re: Byrd
 

What EXACTLY did Vaccarro excel at last year? When he hits people they drop. true. He plays with a nasty attitude. Love it. But can he cover a TE, RB or slot WR? Is he a ballhawk? Did he record more tackles than Harper the year before? And I'm tired of these Bleacher Report rankings that rank everything. Don't quote me some stat that says he's a great cover guy. Someone recently posted a report(after I dogged JG blocking), that Jimmy is the 10th best blocking TE in the NFL. LOL. I'll drink to that.

Re: Byrd
 

There wasn't an immediate need to upgrade the D-line because they didn't suck last year. We could have been better at DT, where we've struggled to stop the run for years, but the fact is we had no problem getting pressure last year. Now everybody looks slow and confused. More importantly though, they look scared to tackle. If you can't make a simple tackle you're hopeless. You can have blazing speed, diagnose every play perfectly and be all around the ball, but if you miss the tackle you're useless.

Sadly, missed tackles are just one of the problems.

Re: Byrd
 

Vaccaro has looked as bad or worse than Harper ever did. Vaccaro is an in the box safety similar to Harper. Play him too deep and he'll get exposed. Keep him in the box and he's probably a pro-bowler.

Byrd has looked bad, but that's what happens to safeties when you don't have a solid pass rush or a good front 7.

Re: Byrd
 

Vaccaro has looked terrible, but then what player on our defense has actually looked good?

Corey white stills grades out as our best DB, I still see him trying every week, I can't say the same for the others

Re: Byrd
 

Keenan Lewis did an excellent job on Dez Bryant. Man to man. No help from the safeties. He did his thing. Vacarro did well playing nickel corner and covering people last year. I don't know what the issue is. Everybody on our defense looked great last year. Maybe it's because teams didn't know what to expect. They've got a year worth of film. They know exactly what they want to exploit.

Re: Byrd
 

I heard a ridiculous statistic yesterday (sorry can't qoute it, maybe Oak can help) about the number of solo tackles made by our DB's and safeties against Dallas. This of course means they were the last chance to tackle because the Dallas player had gotten past the front 7.

Until the front starts getting some pressure and playing at the level we all thought they were capable of, it just doesn't matter if it's Byrd, P-Rob, White, Charles Woodson, or Ronnie Lott. They are going to get picked apart every week.

Re: Byrd
 

Well, let's go get Sharper out of jail and put him on the field then.

Re: Byrd
 

Not saying anything about the fact that he's a rapist, because he deserves to be in jail and never come out

I'm talking strictly on the field, when sharper lined up 20-25 yards back he still managed 10 picks

I wish we could mimic the bills defensive scheme where Byrd was so successful.

Re: Byrd
 

Byrd has been one of 4 defenders I see making efforts. Only he, Keenan, White and Lofton are playing. Everyone else is awol. We overpaid for him but in fairness I saw him as the last piece of the puzzle that was an excellent defense last year. I figured with him as a realistic upgrade over Malcolm Jenkins we could play more one high safety coverage and allow Vaccaro to be disruptive at the line.

I truly do not understand what is wrong beyond lack of effort, ignoring basic fundamentals of defense and perhaps our scheme becoming stale. We have been atrocious on defense overall and it's shocking and frustrating.

Re: Byrd
 

All I can say is we better f**king beat Tampa Bay into oblivion.

Re: Byrd
 

Vacarro last year was very solid in guarding te's and wr's in the slot and was a beast in run support. Idk what it is this year, imma go with no pressure and scheme same with Byrd having to babysit cb's instead of roaming like he did in Buffalo. Seems like Rob and Sean are trying to reinvent the wheel and out smarting themsleves in the process

Re: Byrd
 

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

Re: Byrd
 

RR needs to totally re-do the scheme

We have no pass rush so he is playing Byrd so far back so that our DB's don't get burned, which in turn is allowing all of the underneath routes to be wide open because we don't have LB's that can cover

Couple this together with the fact that we can't tackle and in John maddens voice BOOM, there's your spags defense all over again

Re: Byrd
 

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.

Re: Byrd
 

I don't who blames who they all suck.