you see I find that to be the issue. I expect kiko and McDonald among others to be jettisoned. That was more than obvious. The issue became filling the holes. They were more than deliberate about not filling those holes last week or with average free agents. The issue is that the players could see it as well. What I fear is that the players and coaches have begun to clash with each other. The NFL requires a large sacrifice in terms of personal health. When the players are being sent the message that their health is being sacrificed for future replacements and to lose you get what happened on Sunday. Sure we voided this year, but the players are worried about their jobs and possible future in the league.Every coach seems to be obsessively concerned with stopping the run. This is why. If you can't stop the run, you will be completely dominated, even in this era of pass-happy offenses. ESPECIALLY in this era of pass-happy offenses, because all the defenses are light and quick to handle passing offenses, so they simply don't have the raw power and physicality to handle running teams. We couldn't stop the run, and thus, we were epically dominated in every imaginable way. The defense played tighter to the LoS and were burned deep repeatedly. Our LB's were garbage so when they broke past the DL, everything was chunk yardage. Our poor DB's were doing most of the tackling, and most of those guys aren't built for that. It was a massacre.
Rule #1 on defense … and Coach Flo knows this … STOP THE RUN. We couldn't have failed more miserably.
Rule #2 on defense … generate a pass rush. We intentionally hamstrung this defense by consciously eliminating all pass rushers and not replacing them. It's only a matter of time until the secondary loses coverage without a pass rush to force the QB to throw quickly. This was by design, to allow Coach Flo to improve the other aspects of the defense while still ensuring that we tank. It is amazing just how well it works to hamstring a defense without pass rushers.
The tanking is by design … and the design worked a little too well.
Grier/Flores may have set off a "ticking time bomb" with the players. The players don't seem to believe the coaches have their best interests based on some of the body language Sunday. That and the mixed messages and active sabotage of the roster may not have been the response our franchise leaders wanted. Let's see what happens with week 2 but it's something to keep an eye on