Quote:Babich isn't all at fault, given the lack of talent rushing the passer and at safety (and even LB when it comes to coverage). However, there is something to say about putting your players where they can make plays. Far too often this season, I've seen this defense be in the wrong spot (many times confused pre-snap on responsibilities...and this is throughout the entire 3 years Babich has been our DC).

 

I remember Mike Smith as our DC. Often times, the defense doesn't make a stop. But often times, the play was there to be made...the player just failed. There were also plenty of times when it felt like our defense "knew" what the other offense was doing. Vic kind of hinted at this back then, and basically what Vic said was there were games when the Jags really had an educated guess what the other team was going to do.

 

Rarely, if ever, do I get that vibe from our defense. In fact, it almost seems to be the other way around...that the opposing offenses can "guess" our defensive tendencies.

 

Our offense has been one of the most blitzed offense in the NFL, yet Olson struggled (or perhaps Blake failed to recognize) to take advantage of this by getting the ball out quickly.

 

The Jaguars rarely blitz defensively. Yet I remember a game mid-season(when we were struggling to rush the passer with 4 man front), and as soon as we call blitz...boom...we got hit by a well designed RB screen.

 

Our Mike Smith/JDR defense had its own issues. It allowed good QBs to have record breaking days because that Cover 2 scheme conceded the short pass.  Also, it never disguised anything. We just lined up and played. Very vanilla.

 

And it's interesting to note that JDR learned from that and employed a unique scheme in Denver. They disguised coverages and ran an original scheme. That led to success and another HC job in Oakland.

 

Similar to those days with Mike Smith, that was JDR's philosophy and defensive scheme. Smith was just making it run. Today this is Gus' scheme and Babich is running it.

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