Here’s OntarioRam…
I am starting to come around to your opinion on Morris (Oldnotdead’s) despite the heavy criticism you sometimes receive for it.
Those coverage stats in the other thread are unreal and should be cause for extremely serious concern.
Inb4 people argue that Morris just does not have the pieces to play his defence. If only we had another edge, or were healthier on defence, they will say.
This defence is more or less the same as last year's, but without Von Miller. But Wagner is a big upgrade at LB over Troy Reeder, and I think our secondary depth is better this season, so it is not like we took massive steps backwards everywhere. It's a salary cap world. You can't have elite players and tons of depth at every position. The Rams already have stars like AD99 and Ramsey on their defence, which is 2 of 3 level covered. What more does Morris want? Unlike our offensive line, the defense is mostly healthy at present. Go ask the 49ers if being 100% healthy at all times is a prerequisite for winning, because they just embarrassed us with seemingly 50% of their roster unavailable. Everybody has injuries.
Are we supposed to believe that less than one calendar year removed from winning the Super Bowl, the Rams' defensive roster is suddenly so deficient in talent that it has to be far and away the least aggressive unit in the NFL to cover for its (alleged....) deficiencies that are (allegedly....) handicapping Morris?
Bend but don't break is one thing and reasonable minds can differ on ideal schematic approaches for any given roster and how to maximise its talents. But we are magnitudes softer in coverage than any other NFL franchise and haven't even suffered an injury to any of the defence's key cogs. An approach *that* soft on defence is a deliberate coaching choice without justification in my view. The inverse would essentially be instructing your DBs to play ultra aggressive on every snap and try to jump every route. It's madness.
After those scary soft coverage stats I am now starting to really question Morris and wonder.... is our lack of pass rush success also the result of a deliberate coaching decision? Does Morris want his pass rushers more so working to contain the QB and set the edge, rather than trying to get home, to the point he is way over doing it and prejudicing our QB pressure?
