Caldwell's zone coverages have given his defense a large element of "bend but don't break" that wasn't his original intent.
Personnel deficiency forced him here.
Therefore teams move the ball up and down the field fairly readily but things get tighter in the red zone.

So, until they acquire players that can play man coverage more effectively they will have some issues with better offenses and coordinators that score from long range, beat our red zone coverage, or find explosive plays by getting players out of position.

We did well up until the niners game limiting explosive plays, but there is plenty of tape out there now revealing our secondaries tendencies to react in suspect ways to various formations and routes. Other teams are following suit by capitalizing on those negative tendencies I suspect.

It's Caldwell's turn to analyze tape of those exploitations and coach his guys up on it.

Well see how that goes Sunday and beyond.

He assuredly does not have the personnel required stop the top contenders. We all hoped in the offseason this defense could just go from "bad but sometimes scrappy good" to "middle of the pack" - Instead we saw them play out of their minds in terms of opportunistic turnovers before sinking into a slump of blown coverages and deteriorating run defense.

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