There was some discussion in the NFL thread about our defense when the Saleh stuff came up in conversation, so I thought I’d move over here with my thoughts. I don’t know what Hafley’s defense is going to be (I think 8 or 9 games is when I want to see this thing clicking a bit more than it has, and that would be right about when the offense turned it around last year), but it seems to be a perfect marriage of plan and player when it comes to McKinney, who probably needs no more discussion at this point. He’s doing things we haven’t seen around here since Woodson, and unlike for some people on the defense, Hafley’s scheme and McKinney’s game seems very sympatico.
This brings me to one of the other infusions of talent from the offseason, Evan Williams. When you watch that film breakdown, you can see the proof of his studying and the intelligence coming together. Not only does he anticipate and make good plays, he learns from mistakes and reads tendencies to make in-game adjustments, too. Coaches raved about him in the pre-draft process, and I can see why. As kind of a small player with 4.6 speed, who knows how long he’ll have starting ability, but he might have it already, and he seems to play fast enough to be able to keep adequate legs into a second contract. He looks like a really nice find for Gutekunst and the scouting department.
All this good news and feel-good talk about the safeties actually brings me to my biggest fear for this season. Apart from the injuries (which can tank anyone’s season at any time), the thing I worry about most is that this defense will never quite come together this year because we don’t have the personnel it needs up front. I think Gutekunst has mostly proven he can identify players a system needs and go get those guys in free agency and the draft. That’s all well and good for the safety overhaul this year, which has clearly worked. But the defensive front is almost all holdovers from previous years and a different scheme.
Now I’m not going to exonerate the players entirely; while I’m not a film rat or anything, it seems entirely fair to say that Clark, Gary, and Smith (and probably LVN) need to deliver the goods and they’re good enough to do it in any scheme. Jon Meerdink writes for APC and has a great podcast and site of his own, and he’s been compiling pass rush stats for year over year comparison. This year, it is a grim read. It is getting to the point where you have to think if it doesn’t turn around soon, it might not happen at all, and that will not bode well down the stretch. There’s still time for this pass rush, but the signs of life are very few, and it is getting late.