Here’s Oldnotdead…
Why does Kendrick keep getting a pass? He free-lances as much as Marcus Peters always looking to make a splash play. He's dropped a lot of coverages that went for yardage because he gets fooled. He gave up a monster pass and got bailed out by Scott or it would have been a TD. He flat intentionally dropped his coverage. Yet Morris did squat.
Kendricks is another Hill, too slow to play boundary CB and too slow to play man. To say Morris doesn't have the CBs to play man is wrong. Rochell can play both man and zone. Durant can play man and zone both are way faster than Hendricks and Hill. With Kendricks and Hill Morris has to play zone because they can't play man. This is why they play a simplistic zone style. Staley played a combination of a zone/man hybrid system and had a top defense. There are times when the offense struggles which means the defense must step it up to win....when did people forget the object is to win. There will be times when the defense struggles and the offense must step it up. That's how you win championships.
Morris played this stupid simplistic soft zone early last year remember? Late in the year, he began to tighten things up. Halfway through the season and he's still playing his good enough style of defense. Well, IMO it ain't good enough. This defense is ranked about 12th in most surveys right now. Three future HOF players on defense and that is the best they can be, basically middle of the pack?
Wade Phillips used Rapp correctly and he was a stand out. He's best when played in the box as a roving SS. Morris keeps using him deep where his lack of speed is apparent. Morris starts Hendricks instead of Rochell, despite his lack of discipline (which has been costly) and lacking deep speed needed to play boundary CB. Morris plays Hill instead of Durant even though he lacks the speed and quickness that Durant has. Morris keeps starting Lewis even though it's apparent he's not a starting caliber player. They might be better off with Jonah Williams at DE who has the strength and speed lacking in Lewis.
Raheem has the players to play an attacking style of defense. But he lacks the balls to play that style. Besides he's going to play "his guys". I had hoped Morris had learned something from last year. But clearly, he didn't. When he played aggressively, the defense dominated. But for whatever reason, he only plays that way once the opposition reaches the Ram's 40. That is stupid. He's costing the Rams offense possessions it needs to win close games. IMO Raheem has proved he's not going to play to his unit's strength because for some reason it scares him to do so. He's wasting precious years of AD, Wagner, and Ramsey, and IMO that is a crime.
This defense was built to run a hybrid 3-4 but Morris doesn't play it that way. He has Gaines in a 0T which isn't playing to his strength which is a one gap NT. His whole unit isn't playing to it's strengths. Snead drafted Rochell because of his potential as a man coverage shutdown CB. But Morris has benched him for an undisciplined glory hunting rookie. Gutless Morris leaves the dicipline to Ramsey because he doesn't want to criticize his guy. That showed me all I needed to see.
