5 hours ago
(5 hours ago)THE PISTONS Wrote: Nobody is pretending injuries don't matter. What the debate is, is the quality of the players injured.
At DT, IF Rankins and all the DT's were healthy, I doubt we'd have a good defensive line still. I think Rankins isn't a good fit here.
Same in the secondary. If all of our CB's were healthy, I don't think we'd be great. Dax Hill shouldn't be a #1 CB. He was considered a failure at Safety and moved to CB. He's maybe a #3 or 4 CB on a good defense.
Turner likely isn't a top 3 CB on a good defense.
Hubbard's performance has been down. Maybe it's injuries? Maybe it's age. Murphy, Jenkins, and Ossai have been relatively healthy and they've largely struggled.
Jenkins and Jackson both got hurt in camp and got thrown into the deep end with the other DT injuries. We were signing guys off the street (Guy) at DT. At DE, too (Henry).
On top of that, Stone & CTB were awful early, Hubbard, too. Bell as well, and Battle was so out of sorts Anthony was getting snaps instead. And Pratt has struggled.
Dax & Turner are not world beaters in coverage, but they are better than Hilton, Fig, and Ivey (who was also out early).
Speaking of Hilton, he is largely wasted sitting back in zone. If he is not gonna blitz once in a while (run or pass) we are wasting his strongest attribute. That is on Lou.
