So much of defense is about recognition. So many people focus on the scheme, but players have to make it work.
When you have a secondary that can't recognize and anticipate what the routes are going to be, then you lose that aggression as well.
This is where sometimes I look at the safeties and I think... yeah, they are in the right spot based on the scheme.. but if they recognized the play earlier, they would have broken to the spot earlier.
While people laud Kupp for breaking off routes by recognizing where the defense is.... the defense can adjust by a millisecond as well and that's what I think is a big part missing. People will blame the scheme, but part of this is read recognition in the secondary. Maybe that was a difference with Weddle.. someone with lots of experience and who has seen every receiver to know tendencies on breaks and routes... who can make the minor adjustments to the scheme on the fly.
People want aggressive defense but you need to have the players that can read/recognize quickly and well.
When you see those pick sixes... it usually falls into 3 categories:
1) Everything was right, but poorly thrown ball
2) Scheme fooled the QB... think like you always were running a soft cover 2 leaving the middle open and then you run a tampa 2 and the QB misreads it and throws it to the middle where the LB is now at
3) Player anticipates correctly and makes an early break on the ball
#3 is what sets really great aggressive defenses apart and I don't see the Rams having the players to do that right now.