I'm gonna ask you for a favor.

Quote
Ramsdude


When I look at the players you mention above, is a defense with 3 hof'ers, Gaimes, Rapp and Scott all that bad? That's a pretty good core group of players.

Questions for you Deadpool.

How many other coaches would give their right arm to have 3 hof'ers on the D and to make it even better, have one HOF'er at each level?

Out of all the coaches that would love to have that talent, how many do think would only run a Prevent Defense behind them? None, including Morris. He is not running a prevent defense. It very much is a Fangio D.

Seems like a misuse of hof talent from having a lack of creativity. As I said before, we have the most unimaginative DC in the game. I don't see how it gets any better after losing the only talent he had to work with. Oh, the D will get worse before it gets better. For sure. But FA isn't over, the draft hasn't happened yet. I'm not ready to call time of death just yet.

Thanks again for the respectful reply Deadpool. You were able to get your points across without getting personal and insulting. Something some people have a very hard time doing! I very much appreciate that!

Now for my favor. I have posted this before. But I would love for you to read the article. Its a great piece from SI.com. It goes into great detail on how Morris schemed the Bengals for the SB. If you don't, thats fine. I just thought it might help you see that it isn't a 1 trick charmin shell, and that there is a heck of a lot more to his defense then meets the eye. Here are some parts I found very interesting:

[www.si.com]

Play 1
Rams 7, Bengals 0. 0:36 left in the first quarter. Third-and-10, ball at Rams’ 11.

The call was Crank 1 Y Special, with “Special” indicating there’d be double teams on the two receivers to the field (Chase and Boyd), and Ramsey would be on his own to the boundary. To disguise it, the Rams gave Burrow indicators that they were in a two-high or quarter/half look, before switching into the actual coverage at the snap.

Me: so yes Morris does disguise his coverages.

Play 2
Rams 13, Bengals 10. 0:48 left in the second quarter. Third-and-6, ball at Bengals’ 25.

Morris got the Rams in their “gold” front, which presented the overload to Burrow’s left and put Ramsey on Chase to that side—again putting the onus on his best corner, this time with showing just a single-high safety behind him, to buy his rush time.

Me: so they are showing man coverage with safety help over the top on Chase.

At the snap, Burrow looked to Chase. Ramsey had him. He then progressed, and the hope was that a postsnap switch to zone, after showing man presnap (and having Chase manned up to the outside) would get Burrow to hesitate. It did. The “Tess” pressure call got home on Morris’s bet that Burrow’s protection would slide to the overload. Leonard Floyd engaged left tackle Jonah Williams, Greg Gaines looped around Floyd, Williams slid to Gaines, and that freed Floyd to take down Burrow.

Me: so again a disguised coverage, designed to help get the pass rush home. And Floyd did. Thats good game planning, a good in game call and excellent execution. I'm not going to sit here and claim its all on Morris. Heck no, players have to execute.

Halftime

Mixon was averaging 5.7 yards per carry—so Morris talked to defensive line coach Eric Henderson on showing more five-man fronts to bottle that up. Second, Morris worked with secondary coaches Ejiro Evero and Jonathan Cooley on getting into dime, with a sixth defensive back, more on third down (something outside linebackers coach Chris Shula brought perspective on from the booth) as Morris planned to crank up the pressure over the second half.

Me: Does this sound like a 1 trick prevent pony to you? It doesn't seem like it to me.

It goes on with 3 more plays, all with short youtube videos. I find this kind of stuff really interesting. I hope everyone would give this a read. People may or may not think Morris is a good DC, or he plays a soft shell with no imagination, but I challenge anyone that reads this will have the same opinion. He knows football.

I will end with this and people can disagree with me, thats fine. I think not having Miller and Weddle really hurt last year. Weddle was such a heady veteran, and so much more cerebral than Rapp or Scott. And Miller just added such a dynamic pass rush and leadership to the front. So yes, IMO, I think Morris was limited more this year than in the SB run, but it wasn't just a charmin shell, no disguise, prevent defense all year.

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Don't waste your time looking back, you're not going that way. - Ragnar Lothbrok