Meeks doesn’t have the speed on his defense yet to facilitate the style he wants to use.

After looking over the team he had in Indianapolis in 2006 (Superbowl) they had a dynamite secondary and a speedy d-line, but horrible linebackers. Even in 2006 they were the 21st defense in the league and allowed a league leading 47% 3rd down conversions.

Robert Mathis had 12.5 sacks, Dwight Freeney had 5.5 sacks, Raheem Brock had 47 tackles and 3 sacks, Anthony McFarland had 33 tackles and 2.5 sacks. That is an amazing amount of production from the D-line… and if people made it through the line then Cato June was 5th in the league in tackles and was able to make plays.

When looking at the D-line and LBs:
- Thomas Davis is our Cato June
- Peppers should be our Mathis, but he is only on pace for 8 sacks.
- Brayton should be our Freeney, but he has not recorded a sack.
- We are getting almost zero production from Hayden/Leonard and Lewis.

As for the DBs… in 2006 Meeks had:
- 11 team interceptions
- 294 team tackles (CB Nick Harper had 75, FS Marlin Jackson had 82)
- 37 passes defended (lowest in NFL)

Here, we can see that Meeks relied on DBs who could tackle over those who could play the ball in the air. Our DB’s are all poor tacklers, but play the ball well in the air (normally).

What does this all mean? Basically, Meeks’ system can be effective with the right personelle, but we are going to be struggling for several years until he can get ‘his guys’ and there is no guarantee he’ll last that long.

If Jacksonville’s season tanks again and Del Rio is fired, you better believe we’ll replace Meeks with Del Rio faster than you can say John Fox.

But Cato June was an OLB, as is Thomas Davis.

A cover two typically utilizes the MLB to drop back to around where the SS and FS are at the snap to cover the middle in pass coverage. This effectively takes them out of being effective run stoppers unless the run is directly up the middle.

The OLB’s play their zone slightly to the right and left, but don’t drop back nearly as far making it easier for them to close in on the run.

DWG’s assessment is somewhat correct when you look at the Philadelphia game. The defense only gave up 17 points in that debacle. The offense and special teams spotted them more points and yardage while our defense wasn’t even on the field. That’s a point I made after the Eagles game to say the loss could be laid on special teams, the offense, and O-line, specifically…rather than the defense.

But…when we DO have that defense on the field for the majority of the game (i.e., like they were against Atlanta), we can see they’ve still got the same problems we saw throughout the preseason. They’re just not able to stop good running teams. Even though the Falcons didn’t NEED to give Michael Turner a lot of touches, he still managed 4.0 yards per carry. That’s not getting it done in the NFL. Meanwhile, our secondary continues to play soft zone coverage where they can’t seem to find the receiver who wanders into their zone in time to prevent them from catching the ball (or getting open in the first place). And, what continues to be the primary issue is that there’s no pressure on the QB to hurry his throw and help them out.

To me, a defense is at its BEST when it’s disruptive to what the opposing offense wants to do. When’s the last time you can say our guys did that? I think it’s been awhile. That’s because we have no pass rush. We don’t blitz very often to generate one. And, even when we do on obvious passing downs, our opponents are able to keep maximum protection to give their quick-release QBs enough time to hit a receiver where our DBs are playing more than 5 yards off them (and sometimes as much as 10 yards!). Instead, we rely on our 4 DLs to generate pressure. But none of them do. So, it doesn’t matter if we keep 7 back in coverage. The QB has all day to find an open receiver…or slip past our pass-rushers and run upfield for a 1st down.

THAT’S the core of our defensive problems. But now we also have issues in our run defense with the loss of Kemo and no sustainable DT to replace him. We also seem to have serious tackling issues up the middle with LBs and the safeties trying to play pinball by shouldering into guys rather than wrapping them up. It does us no good if guys fly to the ball, only to whiff or bounce off when they get there.

Lastly, I think our defense hinders our offense. That’s right. The defense (and our special teams) shackles our offense. How? Because they give up points. They them up in bunches. Atlanta scored pretty easily against us…and certainly whenever they had to. Special teams just gives away points as well. The Eagle’s punt return absolutely sank us. And the bottom line is that our offense winds up playing from behind. That takes us out of our strongsuit (i.e., running the ball), because we have to eke out extra possessions by turning to our passing game for quicker scores and to conserve the clock. That plays to the opposing defense everytime. They no longer have to honor the run. They can shut down our WRs and challenge Delhomme to thread the ball through coverage and risk the turnover. And, as soon as he throws a pick or fumbles because the pass-rushers are in his face again, we blame him for the loss? I just don’t get it. It’s not one guy’s performance that leads us into those situations. The core problem with this team is the defense that gets us into those situations in the first place.

But that’s just my two-cents,
—Neil