Let’s look at the bright spots from Cincinnati’s defense last night.

What?

Oh, I’m sorry. There weren’t any.

I’m willing to give Lou Anarumo a chance but what I saw last night was basically Teryl Austin 2.0. There was more cushion given to the Chiefs’ receivers than Anthony Munoz sees at Furniture Fair. I understand giving up a few yards at a time is inevitable but Kansas City ran a bunch of plays for massive yardage.

The only consolation for me was seeing Zac Taylor fuming on the sideline. I hope he gets in people’s faces about this.

(08-11-2019, 08:40 PM)Fan_in_Kettering Wrote: Let’s look at the bright spots from Cincinnati’s defense last night.

What?

Oh, I’m sorry.  There weren’t any.

I’m willing to give Lou Anarumo a chance but what I saw last night was basically Teryl Austin 2.0.  There was more cushion given to the Chiefs’ receivers than Anthony Munoz sees at Furniture Fair.  I understand giving up a few yards at a time is inevitable but Kansas City ran a bunch of plays for massive yardage.  

The only consolation for me was seeing Zac Taylor fuming on the sideline.  I hope he gets in people’s faces about this.

He said in his presser that they have to be more physical and aggressive and not give such a big cushion on the outside. 

Basically, more than Marv ever said in his 16 years combined. "We have to play better". 

(08-11-2019, 08:53 PM)rfaulk34 Wrote: He said in his presser that they have to be more physical and aggressive and not give such a big cushion on the outside. 

Basically, more than Marv ever said in his 16 years combined. "We have to play better". 

That’s definitely a good point. At least Zac has the ability to zero in on actual playing issues. It’s an improvement over clap and giggle.

Any Giant fan will tell you that Lou IS Austin 2.0 or worse.

Austin had DC experience. Lou is more like defense Zampese.

(08-11-2019, 08:40 PM)Fan_in_Kettering Wrote: Let’s look at the bright spots from Cincinnati’s defense last night.

What?

Oh, I’m sorry.  There weren’t any.

I’m willing to give Lou Anarumo a chance but what I saw last night was basically Teryl Austin 2.0.  There was more cushion given to the Chiefs’ receivers than Anthony Munoz sees at Furniture Fair.  I understand giving up a few yards at a time is inevitable but Kansas City ran a bunch of plays for massive yardage.  

The only consolation for me was seeing Zac Taylor fuming on the sideline.  I hope he gets in people’s faces about this.

When you have terrible LB's...it's hard to have a good defense. Taylor can yell at people all he wants...but it won't help. It's not lack of effort. It's lack of talent...and yelling doesn't help that.

This team is pretty much all in on Jefferson and Pratt being good LB's and Jefferson looked lost last night.

Billings looked out of shape too.

Maybe training camp is too easy? As far as Lou...Austin atleast had DC experience. I doubt if any other NFL team would hire Lou as DC. Now as a DB coach...yes.

(08-11-2019, 08:57 PM)Fan_in_Kettering Wrote: That’s definitely a good point. At least Zac has the ability to zero in on actual playing issues.  It’s an improvement over clap and giggle.

So you think Marvin who was the DC of one of the best defenses of all-time didn't have the ability to zero in on issues? He absolutely did.

I doubt that any coach would have got Hardy Nickerson and Evans playing great last year...but when Marvin took over as DC there was improvement. A head coach isn't supposed to micro-manage the offense and defense. That's why they have coordinators.

Marvin likely didn't want to get into every small detail in pressers after 16 years...but he definitely knew what the issues were.

(08-11-2019, 09:54 PM)Nately120 Wrote: Austin had DC experience.  Lou is more like defense Zampese.

Exactly! And Marvin had DC experience with a Super Bowl Defense.

ZT? He was Rams QB Coach for 1 year...yeah the year after Goff became good. And Assistant WR's coach the year before. Hard to really say his credentials will assure success.

And all this talk about more is less with training camp...guys like Billings look out of shape. Not sure doing less is what these guys need. IF we were 11-5 last year - Maybe. But we've won 6-7 games in each of the past 3 years. We need to work and develop. We need to be better conditioned than our opposition. We need to be able to play hard and grind. None of that happened PS Game 1. And Lou's strength was supposed to me communication and motication.

(08-11-2019, 10:21 PM)THE PISTONS Wrote: Exactly! And Marvin had DC experience with a Super Bowl Defense.

ZT? He was Rams QB Coach for 1 year...yeah the year after Goff became good. And Assistant WR's coach the year before. Hard to really say his credentials will assure success.

And all this talk about more is less with training camp...guys like Billings look out of shape. Not sure doing less is what these guys need. IF we were 11-5 last year - Maybe. But we've won 6-7 games in each of the past 3 years. We need to work and develop. We need to be better conditioned than our opposition. We need to be able to play hard and grind. None of that happened PS Game 1. And Lou's strength was supposed to me communication and motication.

I have faith in ZT, but I'm expecting him to take some time to get rollin' which is fine.  We are on a 3-year losing streak, so even if this one follows suit at least we can assume he's learning on the job...so, I'm fine with having faith we are buying in way early on the guy.  Lou takes a different kind of faith.  To have faith in Lou requires a lot more mental gymnastics and supposition.  Not saying it can't be done, but he's been around long enough for me to look at him with some hearty and healthy skepticism.

Since real life has no rewind button, I can only assume what would have happened when we play the "what if" game.  The way I see it, if we don't hire ZT he becomes a HC somewhere else eventually.  If we don't hire Lou, he becomes a DC never.  And that is the way I sees it.

I am wondering if there are unreasonable expectations of the 32nd ranked defense in 2018, to somehow drastically improve after an offseason, of no significant talent acquisition.

It will take 4 regular season games before we know if the defense has improved, and whether the offense is capable of helping protect the defense from being out on the field more than 30 other teams each game, as they were in 2018.

(08-11-2019, 10:19 PM)THE PISTONS Wrote: So you think Marvin who was the DC of one of the best defenses of all-time didn't have the ability to zero in on issues? He absolutely did.

I doubt that any coach would have got Hardy Nickerson and Evans playing great last year...but when Marvin took over as DC there was improvement. A head coach isn't supposed to micro-manage the offense and defense. That's why they have coordinators.

Marvin likely didn't want to get into every small detail in pressers after 16 years...but he definitely knew what the issues were.

To be fair, Marvin didn't get I to detail in 16 years. Outside of the people he didnt like, Marvin never called anybody out.

Phone in a game and it was "we needed to do more." Make it on his bad list and it was "that guy needs to step up."

Pressers were Marvin's way of avoiding stepping on guys toes while trying to get more out of guys he didn't want.

No Geno, Lawson, Dre, Dennard, and maybe others... I'm willing to withold judgement a lil bit longer.

Also Billings is well over 3 bills... What the **** do you expect him to look like?

What is most discouraging for me as a fan is that the team had several holes from last year and seemingly thus far, have even more holes on both sides of the ball.

Tackling appears worse this year compared to last year at this time. Worse.

Backers have been thin and Mack Wilson was there in recent draft yet Bengals passed on him (as did several others). I expected more from Jordan Evans by now. What happens if PB goes down again this year? Sad to say but other than the missed coverage for TD, Nickerson was the only noticeable backer that was flying around to the ball. Nickerson. Need I say any more?

Why the hell can't this team cover TE?

I am concerned regarding the depth at safety. Wilson is showing some signs but if FEJ is out, there may be issues there.

The O-Line scares the hell out of me, and has for several years now. But the Offense deserves another thread.

I am not going to hate on Sweet Lou just yet. Lets give him until the first regular season game at least. Remember, and this is startling, the defense has owned the offense thus far in training camp.

Look, the defense struggled a ton last night, but the Chiefs averaged just under 36 points a game last year. They never scored less than 26 points in a game. They are an elite level offense whose strengths line up pretty much perfectly with our weaknesses. I'm not going to fire anybody just because their first team offense had their way with our "first team" defense because they do that to everybody. And it's not like they stopped our first team offense (well, "first team" offense) either.

As for everything that happened after the first quarter? Breaking news - the Bengals might not have a lot of depth on the roster lol. If those guys see the field at all this year it's not going to matter who the defensive coordinator is.

If the guys who are actually going to see game time this season struggle against Washington and New York over the next couple of weeks, then I'll start to worry, but I'm not there yet.

(08-11-2019, 09:54 PM)Nately120 Wrote: Austin had DC experience.  Lou is more like defense Zampese.

This is what I'm thinking.  Maybe he's keeping something under his hat until the regular season.  Hopefully that's the case.

Then again, maybe there's a reason he was the 7th choice in the DC interview process.  We've seen position coaches in over their heads here before.  Hopefully this isn't the defensive version of Zampese.

(08-11-2019, 08:53 PM)rfaulk34 Wrote: He said in his presser that they have to be more physical and aggressive and not give such a big cushion on the outside. 

Basically, more than Marv ever said in his 16 years combined. "We have to play better". 

And rarely did.  We will see if these guys can actually, you know, coach.  

Duke Tobin literally said on the broadcast they were running base and expected to get beat up a bit but they wanted to see how guys kind of handled the onslaught. Add in that you essentially don't have two of the best pass rushers in the league and your best corner and you expect to get ran through. I'm not saying they are going to be great, or even good, but preseason games isn't where you start questioning defensive play calling or scheme.

People need to relax. The Rams scored 3 points against the Raiders, do you think they are in panic mode about their offense?

I expect better tackling. No ***** excuse for that from an alleged pro, no matter the talent level. ZT should be fuming.

I was outspoken in my criticism about the hiring of Capt. Lou and still find it to be embarrassing that he was the ultimate choice.

But even I am not going to use this game to buttress my claim that he was a horrible hire.

(08-11-2019, 08:40 PM)Fan_in_Kettering Wrote: Let’s look at the bright spots from Cincinnati’s defense last night.

What?

Oh, I’m sorry. There weren’t any.

I’m willing to give Lou Anarumo a chance but what I saw last night was basically Teryl Austin 2.0. There was more cushion given to the Chiefs’ receivers than Anthony Munoz sees at Furniture Fair. I understand giving up a few yards at a time is inevitable but Kansas City ran a bunch of plays for massive yardage.

The only consolation for me was seeing Zac Taylor fuming on the sideline. I hope he gets in people’s faces about this.

It’s vanilla defenses. They’re gonna play cushion. Especially without wj3.