Originally Posted by TheGuardian:
Yup. And once we lost Waston it really just had a domino effect over the whole defense.
I think what we didn't really consider was the impact it would have on McDuffie's versatility.
Prior to the Watson injury, McDuffie was still being used about 1/3 of the time in the slot, and those are likely usually in those 3rd and short situations that are just killing us right now.
Watson being replaced by Johnson has hurt, for sure. But I think we've seen a real fall off in McDuffie over that period of time as well because he's being used almost exclusively out wide and so teams are attacking that lack of length.
Like you said, it's a real domino effect that's just made everything worse.
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Originally Posted by smithandrew051:
He is the NFL’s Shaq right now.
In his prime, Shaq should’ve fouled out the opposing center by halftime. He was so dominant the refs couldn’t call a foul every trip down the floor.
Aaron Donald dealt with constant double teams/holding as well.
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Originally Posted by O.city:
It's also a prime reason why you can't rely on defense to really translate from year to year in the NFL. To have a legit elite defense....you need alot of things to go right.
Yep, off the top of my head, Ravens, Bengals and Jets all took a significant step back on defense as well despite retaining the majority of their core players.
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