So how do we fix the defense for next season?

[Joelist]

First off you need to just admit the defense is awful. It can't be blamed on the offense or on losing 2 safeties - it is a BAD defense that has creating turnovers as almost its only upshot. They cannot stop either the run or the pass with consistency. So what is making it so bad? To fix it you need to diagnose the issues. Well...

First off the DL does not generate pressure consistently and ESPECIALLY has problems with interior pass rush. Whether it be via an unlikely free agent coup (Chris Jones) or draft picks that work there HAS to be interior pressure to compliment Trey.

Second, a lot of the run game issues go to inability to seal the edges. This is the weakness in Trey's game and hopefully he can improve his side but the other side also has to improve. Usually Hubbard was good at this but had issues this year - we need Murphy to be ready to if necessary take this spot is he can show he can seal the edge - otherwise we're looking for DE again.

Third, the DL rotation right now is problematic in that the drop-off from starters to backups is TOO big. Especially on the inside we need a big, powerful rotational NT.

The passing game issues really seem linked to answering the question "Why are receivers constantly WIDE open against this defense"? Lou likes zone and zone can work very well IF the players in it are smart and read the flow of the play and react to it. The current group seemingly cannot read stuff fast enough and so they don't react and receivers easily sit in the edges between the zones. So either these kids have to learn how to play in zone smartly or the system has to change to support what they do well. As this group has a lot of speed maybe we need to use more tight man coverage concepts for now?

However we go there are no simple answers for the issues but part of being a great team is you figure issues out - this will be the test of the Bengals.