Article is an extremely interesting read: thank you Terry. If the author knows what he is talking about, it points out somethings that I thought I was seeing, and others that are a surprise and disappointment. I believed that this defense was better than a lot of people were saying especially in the secondary--this fellow does too, and lays the major part of our failures on the front seven, particularly the DEs and the OLBs.
He paints a picture that I believe: our secondary will be very good, if they get better assistance from the front seven, and Diaco can encourage them to get more aggressive on closing routes. He also states that several of our players lack sufficient strength--a big disappointment. The general vision is one of a team needing an near-entire overhaul in strength and conditioning, as well as simple matters of technique [even proper alignment].
The light that he sees has two components [which I also agree with]: 1). these guys should make a dramatic improvement because this staff is trying to take them in proper directions [and one partial season is too short to do it]. And 2). Kelly is trying to recruit the precisely correct kind of players to upgrade.
Well, most of that is good. The great disappointments were his assessments of the strength and understanding-of-position that both the DEs and OLBs lacked. Kapron Lewis-Moore seems the exception in his mind as the player at these spots who seems to be getting it now. The hopefulness in this story lies not in this season but the next. But can we hold the recruiting class this way??
