Does Geno Stone think Free safety means you don’t get involved in any plays unless…

[*TheLeonardLeap*]

(10-11-2024, 01:39 PM)J24 Wrote: Or maybe the defense geld in the playoffs in 2021 and for the 2022 season's? Maybe breaking up that unit wasn't the smartest idea in the world?

If it takes 2 seasons (how long both Bates and Reader were on the team together before the '21 playoffs) for a defense to gel, there's larger problems at play.

Also: We barely played any starting-caliber QBs in 2022 so it's quite possible it was just a mirage. In 13 of our 16 games, we went against QBs like...
Mitchell Trubisky
Cooper Rush
Joe Flacco (Jets)
Concussed Tua/Teddy Bridgewater
Andy Dalton
Marcus Mariota
Jacoby Brissett
Baker Mayfield (Panthers)
Kenny Pickett
Ryan Tannehill
Deshaun Watson
Mac Jones 
Anthony Brown

Bates was just okay in 2022 and Reader only played 38.32% of the snaps that year, a mere 0.10% more than Zac Carter. Heck, Awuzie missed half the season and Hendrickson had only 8 sacks. Very little of that season made sense and isn't exactly a reliable blueprint to copy.

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They also simply had to spend more on offense after being among the league-leaders for years on defensive cap spending. Burrow needed paid (goodbye ~$9m cap hits at QB) and on top of paying him Burrow was sacked 121 times in those two years and he couldn't keep taking that punishment so he needed some actual OL. The Bengals are seemingly incapable of drafting them so they had to buy them. Trey Hopkins at something like $6.6m was the highest cap hit on the OL in 2021 and nobody else on the OL was even at $5m.