Younger's defense

[Pete]

The frustrations with Youngers defense has been very apparent in various posts. Even when we hold a statistical advantage.
The bend dent break style to me isn't working, even if the other teams doesn't get a major it leaves our defense on the field too long, and doesn't give enough reps to the offense.

[Jesse]

I'm not even sure what the problem is at this point. Saw a bunch of 4 man fronts last night and we still couldn't bring any pressure on Bo.

[Sir Blue and Gold]

No one has got more miles out of some early good press three years ago than JY. His system has gotten less effective in each of the seasons afterwards. He gives up way too many yards. He generates far too few turnovers. Quarterbacks get a country club experience.

The unit takes on the mentality of the coordinator and that's soft zone coverage everywhere which puts defensive backs in a position where they have an incredibly long cover clock in their head.

No one can be aggressive on our defense. It's all react, react, react.

It has been flawed from the moment he took over and it has only gotten worse since. And even more alarmingly, in the third quarter you've got Deatrick and Rheda yelling at each other trying to explain who is supposed to be covering what, so amgonst our veteran secondary (which should be JYs mains strength) we've got major problems/ confusion. That's 110% on Younger.

[Sir Blue and Gold]

I'm not even sure what the problem is at this point. Saw a bunch of 4 man fronts last night and we still couldn't bring any pressure on Bo.

The problem is the system, philosophy and the mentality. What I have been saying for the better part of two seasons. The Bombers don't play defense the way championship football teams play defense. The whole unit plays like it's third and 20 with five seconds left in the game and a big lead. Attack. Get to the ball. Play downhill. Hit people. Create some chaos up front. Dictate. None of those are valued in JYs system.

That's not to say you can't mix in layered coverages and safe zone looks but JY is not the man for the job and he never was. The system is trash.

[wpg#1]

Bo had all the time in the world to pick us apart. No pressure at all, so he just stood there and waited for an open receiver. I don't get it.

[3rdand1.5]

I believe he has been figured out. Look every team has incredibly knowledgeable coordinators including ours. Younger was unique and different in how he does some things, it caught other teams off guard, but I believe that his system has been "cracked" and figured out. A guy like BLM who has been around for so long and seen so much, is not tricked by what he saw and it was apparent, he knew where to go, when to go there.....look he is a very good QB but it was far to easy for him.....

[Sir Blue and Gold]

I believe he has been figured out. Look every team has incredibly knowledgeable coordinators including ours. Younger was unique and different in how he does some things, it caught other teams off guard, but I believe that his system has been "cracked" and figured out. A guy like BLM who has been around for so long and seen so much, is not tricked by what he saw and it was apparent, he knew where to go, when to go there.....look he is a very good QB but it was far to easy for him.....

It has for sure been schemed. It had been last year and we had this same conversation. The question for Younger at the time, which I had, is what is he going to do now?

Turns out the answer is he has no idea and it's not even so much the X's and O's although they didn't look good either. It's the entire back-footed persona of the defense.

[Pete]

What bothers me as well, is the lack of aggressiveness, we dont create turnovers, interceptions are few , and hard hits even fewer. We have guys trying to arm tackle and running backs are too good for that.
  First thing we need is a hard hitting safety, that can cover
 The only physical lb is Jones
..Wilson only had 2 tackles against a team that ran the ball 25 times+?

[Sir Blue and Gold]

What bothers me as well, is the lack of aggressiveness, we dont create turnovers, interceptions are few , and hard hits even fewer. We have guys trying to arm tackle and running backs are too good for that.
  First thing we need is a hard hitting safety, that can cover
 The only physical lb is Jones
..Wilson only had 2 tackles against a team that ran the ball 25 times+?

We have the talent. We don't have the vision or philosophy or system. Everyone is always trying to contain. To be incredibly disciplined. It's a cerebral, systems-heavy, thinking style defense. Everyone is playing slow. Everyone is trying so hard to cover every inch of turf that no one is playing the play, beating the guy in front of them or disrupting anything. It's always been a problem with JY's system and the bottom fell out last night. It's just gotten so sooo soooo bad.

[Blue In BC]

We're out muscled too often. As mentioned we're seeing too many shoulder hits instead of wrapping up to tackle. JY is mostly to blame but O'Shea is also to blame.

Anyway, this is all just a continuation of what we saw last year. Who in the heck voted " it's fine and just needs time". Like I don't know . lol

I'm not going to re-watch the game. I'm trying to remember if Moxey got beat for a 50 yard pass or did he commit PI resulting in the yardage given up. Same thing last game. Close doesn't count. Williams had the same problem on Lawler.

Strange that we hardly gave up anything to Lawler but Wheatfall burns us all night.

[theaardvark]

Our DB's seem to be having an issue communicating, and making adjustments to coverage.  While I think JY's DB heavy defence can be effective, a pro like Mitchell seems to be able to pick out the weak points and take advantage of that.  I don't think VA3 has the same reading ability, which is why we feasted on him.

Likewise, the savvy vet Mitchell was able to use our aggressive pass rush against up, stepping up in the pocket or rolling away from it.

JY needs to step it up against savvy vets, and make the subtle changes that are needed to stop them from picking his D apart, but stay aggressive on the younger QB's that don't read as well.

[Sir Blue and Gold]

Our DB's seem to be having an issue communicating, and making adjustments to coverage.  While I think JY's DB heavy defence can be effective, a pro like Mitchell seems to be able to pick out the weak points and take advantage of that.  I don't think VA3 has the same reading ability, which is why we feasted on him.

Likewise, the savvy vet Mitchell was able to use our aggressive pass rush against up, stepping up in the pocket or rolling away from it.

JY needs to step it up against savvy vets, and make the subtle changes that are needed to stop them from picking his D apart, but stay aggressive on the younger QB's that don't read as well.

The defense has always been pretty bad against good zone reading QBs and the list of QBs who have been really effective against it are seemingly growing: Bo Levi, Arbuckle, Alexander and Harris have all shredded our zones more often than not. I'd say we've had some average (or maybe expected success) against Adams (although it looked worse than it ever has in week 1) and Fajardo and we've looked fairly dominant against Rourke/Maier/Brown. It's not looking good.

[theaardvark]

The defense has always been pretty bad against good zone reading QBs and the list of QBs who have been really effective against it are seemingly growing: Bo Levi, Arbuckle, Alexander and Harris have all shredded our zones more often than not. I'd say we've had some average (or maybe expected success) against Adams (although it looked worse than it ever has in week 1) and Fajardo and we've looked fairly dominant against Rourke/Maier/Brown. It's not looking good.

So, we need more man coverage to break up the tendencies we fall into in zone, I guess... not sure how great are DB's are in man.

[Sir Blue and Gold]

So, we need more man coverage to break up the tendencies we fall into in zone, I guess... not sure how great are DB's are in man.

Whether it's man, match, or zone what we need is a commitment to being more aggressive. We haven't been a good tackling team since JY took over but part of it is the mentality and part is system execution: one feeds the other. When you're consistently being conservative you get a very reactionary, passive defense. Could you imagine a Corey Mace defense not breathing on Bo-Levi for 4 quarters? Or even a Richie Hall defense? Mace would have cut everyone after the game last night. His defense dictates terms even if it gets burned sometimes. The entire philosophy is reversed. When the Bombers had a good defense they did the same. JY has had two years to grow as a coordinator and he gotten worse. Not better.

If we're going to give up 500 yards of offense and 35 points anyway we might as well hit the quarterback.

[Throw Long Bannatyne]

So, we need more man coverage to break up the tendencies we fall into in zone, I guess... not sure how great are DB's are in man.

Problem is the top teams have the top QB's and Bombers haven't done well against these teams in the past 2 years.