Lou speaks on the state of the defense

[*TheLeonardLeap*]

(12-28-2023, 12:00 PM)Synric Wrote: Yes there's been some growing pains with the young safeties and it was expected... What was not expected was how bad the highly paid front 6 has been against the run. Bengals are allowing 4.7 yards per carry and 125 per game average. I know some of that is on the young secondary as well but damn the run defense has been just awful and they have so much invested in the DL and LB through Cash and the Draft.

Yup, the run defense is shockingly bad and the pass rush is largely Hendrickson and Hendrickson only (he has more sacks than the 2nd-6th sack guys on the team COMBINED). Wilson has taken a step back in coverage, and Pratt is being used as a 3-down LB this year so he's been exposed to a lot more coverage and has gotten exposed.

There's just way too many problems to be explained simply by the safeties being young.

The scheme among those problems. Even with all the guys here last year they were still the 16th overall defense, the only time they've been above-average in it for 5 years with Lou and that's the literal minimum they could be while not being below average. Even the SB year they were below average in both yards allowed and points allowed.