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PODCAST: Spring Deep Dive (Defense) ft. D$ and Coach Duasso
- Thread starter DMoney
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I think it will be Hall and Carter to start the season, with Bolden eventually taking over and Carter playing a role similar to last year.
At this minute, no. They have no starting experience whatsoever. Expect some growing pain. However, this will be the most talented secondary we've had in a very long time IMO. I think once these guys leave our program they will be viewed in a brighter light than guys like Mike Jackson, Redwine, and J. Johnson.
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I can see this. He has a CB build.
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Willis benefitted from playing in Diaz's scheme which allows for the 3-tech to get loose on the interior due to the heavy stunt blitz & pressure off the edge from the weak side.
This board has transformed Willis into the 2nd coming of Warren Sapp & he was far from that. He had a great season no doubt & as a Ravens fan I'm glad we signed him as a UDFA, but according to how good yall think he was compared to the reality that he went Undrafted shows how much Miami fans really psych themselves out about a single season performance.
Willis is not irreplaceable & he wasn't a sure fire 1st round draft pick, his productivity can be duplicated even if by committee. But the way people hype him on this board as if he was the perfect player is honestly ridiculous, he had holes in his game.
Yes he was great at getting TFL's & being disruptive but rewatch those games from last year, UNC (in the first half), BC, Duke, GTech & Wisconsin figured out how to neutralize his first step & use his aggression against him. There were a lot of plays of him getting washed on cutbacks with Guards pulling & cleaning him TF up.
I'm not trying to dog him or bash him in anyway, just tired of this narrative that keeps getting repeated all offseason about how we're never going to have another productive DT ever again because Willis was a god amongst men, when he wasn't. It's same sh*t fans said about RJ McIntosh after the 2017 season when he had a great year too, but the NFL in both instances didn't see the unstoppable player fans make themselves see.
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I too am concerned about the Defense. No doubt it will regress this year. Also, i don’t believe our Defense was truly elite last year.
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I got to disagree with you here. Willis had a better season than Norton and McIntosh ever had. In fact, I predict he’ll have better NFL careers than those two. One season is a small sample size but for years we heard how talented he was, he was just a head case. Who was the last All American at DT in Miami? I can’t even remember. Your Ravens got the steal of the draft.
I expect a drop off at DT this season. Ford doing well vs. our OL means little to me. This time last year, we heard how Willis was unblockable, no one is quite raving about Ford that way.
brock
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Are we hearing 2 different things from spring? Before he hurt his wrist/arm the coaches were raving about ford actually . Silvera too.
Plus dmoney said in his podcast that he has seen people say if ford had a 9 jersey on he would look like Willis
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brock
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Willis was a presence for sure but he had flaws in his game and you covered that in your post. Nfl draft commentators commonly talked about how undisciplined he was in the run game and if he didn’t get by you with that only move in his ****nal the swim move you could move him out of the play and create a hole in the defense. He was productive I get It and more productive than both McIntosh and Norton ever was but with this scheme dts/de’s are just going to produce period no matter their atheltic ability which we certainly haven’t had the most atheltic prospects on the dline recently yet they still were very productive.
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I’m not saying Ford hasn’t gotten positive reviews. On the contrary, sounds like he is finally turning the corner. However, Willis’s buzz was a tad higher this time last year. Richt literally said he was unblockable. We saw why. I’m not sold on Ford until proven otherwise.
brock
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Maybe so but it’s encouraging that he did generate a good amount of buzz when he played this spring. Also with the Notre progression of Silvera and routine praise of him from the coaches although I expected That given the way he plays and his talent level
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Ford isn't the only DT we have, we literally have Bethel, Silvera, Ford, Nnoruka, Miller & 3 Frosh with great upside.
Fans just lower their expectations because we've been disappointed so many times that it lessens the blow when you just assume the absolute worst is going to happen.
The Defense can survive without Willis, he didn't go Undrafted just because of off the field issues, there were players taken ahead of him who did far far worst things than him & still got drafted. Again watch the tape, this elite invincible Miami HOF player you all have created in your minds showed lots of plays where he wasn't that at all.
It's a moot point trying to convince people the Defense is actually more athletic this year than last, this huge drop off everybody is expecting is really only due to the fact people just don't wanna get their hopes only to be let down again, which I get.
But the fact is, this Defense has gotten better every single season under Diaz's tutelage & the scheme is designed & fitted specifically for the personnel to thrive. I'll just be in the minority & wait for the rest of yall to show up later in the year lol, but this drastic decline most are expecting from the Defense isn't happening & I say that not from a Orange & Green shades homer perspective, but because of my understanding of the system & how it works.
Seeing is believing & our fans have been duped too many times to believe anything before it actually happens, which I completely understand.
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This is a big topic for me, @Liberty City El, so forgive the length of the response. As fans, we too often play extremes without looking at the numbers and context. I get your response comes from a place of trying to calm people down.
I've re-watched every snap, sometimes multiple times, and while I understand trying to lessen the hype (especially if you're talking about absolute statements like "we'll never have another productive DT again"), I don't see what you saw, generally speaking. The "wash" and overpursuit often happened from our LB crew playing too aggressively. More often than not, Willis did his job and a little more.
When Willis was, in fact, stalemated, like every single DT experiences (even the best pros), he often came back with some disruption. "Perfect" play is unrealistic. What made his play stand out was that a lot of those splash plays were consistent game to game in terms of volume. If someone read your post and didn't watch anything, they'd likely be shocked this guy racked up 18 TFLs and countless disruptions. Did those come from only 3-4 games against crap opponents? Nah. 14.5 of those TFLs came against teams with winning records. He had 9.5 at home and 8.5 on the road. 8 in conference. 10 out of conference.
We played a crap schedule overall, so not like he got a bunch of opportunities, but 4 TFLs were against ranked teams. Duke neutralized him? BC? Some of those plays have nothing to do with Willis or the position he plays. BC, for example, ran the kitchen sink of misdirection and we gave their offense the ball basically the entire game. That defense was wrecked. He didn't play against Wisconsin this year, no? Even in his bad games and plays, he was overall more consistent (albeit for only one year, but that's what we're talking about) than any DT here in over a decade, at least.
Going undrafted does nothing to undercut what he did for us last season. There are so many more variables at play with what happened with his draft status. The bottom line is to compare what he did last year versus what we can realistically expect to get from his replacement this year. If we have a DT this season who matches what Willis consistently did last year, I'll owe you 5 rounds of drinks in Charlotte.
My hope is we get a couple guys to get close to his broad impact or a deeper unit to get close to what last year's unit did. Because I believe we'll get better production from the DEs and, hopefully, more disciplined play from the LBs.
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