What happened yesterday: the defense

Real quickly, here's the breakdown:

Our defense allowed 21 points to the Oakland Raiders in one quarter of play.

Those points came on three drives of 57 yards, 84 yards and 88 yards. These were not short fields the defense was inheriting.

From the first quarter on, the D-line was getting beat. Casey and Keisel were penetrating the line, but then getting knocked off their positions. When a D-line gets moved laterally like they were, it's very hard for linebackers to stay in their run gaps. When that happens, two adjustments need to be made: the LBs have to step back from their passrushing positions on the edge, and the safeties have to come in to assist in the run stopping.

At one point during the game, the Raiders busted through our line for several rushing yards and a first down; you turned to me and asked if that should concern you as much as it did; I said: yes. It was absolutely the case of our front seven getting knocked out of their run gaps. Staying in our run gaps is the alpha and the omega of our defensive gameplan. It is how we set everything up to beat the Vikings and the Broncos. It didn't happen all day yesterday.

The Raiders play calling included a lot of tosses and pitches on run plays. These are the kind of run plays that Troy explodes in the backfield, hitting the ball carrier and allowing the LBs to flow to him. We didn't have Troy, and we didn't win at the line, so the LBs were isolated on these assignments. The truth about our linebackers: outside of Timmons, they're not terribly fast. Harrison has good quickness on the pass rush, but you saw his 100 yard dash. Woodley and Farrior rely entirely on positioning to get to the play. When these guys are isolated and have to initiate the play, they're not at their best.

Anyway, Gradkowski really didn't do anything on pass plays except chuck the ball as far as he could. Considering that he was terribly inaccurate for 3 quarters of play, and that his WRs were dropping the balls that came to them, it was fair that we would bring the safeties into the box to stop the run.

By the 4th quarter, we normally pull linemen and replace them with DBs, but the Raiders continued to sample their entire playbook, running the ball well on the first drive of the quarter. So we continued to keep the nose tackle on the field. This meant cover 0 and cover 1. That's the coverage you saw when Ike got burnt.

I'm watching MNF and they just showed Ray Lewis' pre-game pep talk to his defense. He just had them break their huddle on "1,2,3 PHYSICAL!" I hate him so much, but he's got exactly the right idea.

Anyway, I don't blame LeBeau. He was making the adjustments he needed to without completely compromising himself. The culprit was execution by the players.

Let me just say, I hate it when people say "Lack of execution is why we lost! Had we only executed well we would have been better!" Yeah, no shit. Tautology 101. But anyway, I think it's fair to talk execution if we're specific, and the specific areas of performance that we didn't execute were as follow:
-controlling the line of scrimmage
-stopping the run with the front 7
-swatting or intercepting balls when we had the coverage

Obviously it was a huge blunder on Ike's part when he allowed a 342 yard touchdown pass, but no more so than when we had double or triple coverage on a guy and let him catch the ball. No more than when Joe Burnett dropped a ball that hit him in the numbers. No more so when William Gay fell down every time the ball was in his zone. Ike was bad, but he was in single coverage because our front seven weren't getting the job done. The other guys don't have any excuse.

As for Ryan Mundy-- he's not very good. He's okay, if you hide him in the midst of several very good players, or on a practice squad. He got burnt twice, once in the endzone and once by a flag. The flag is going to get thrown in Gary Bettman's NFL whether we like it or not. It really was the result of the previous play, in which Mundy slammed into his own teammate with his helmet. When the officials saw him leading with his helmet two plays in a row, it was important to them that this guy get his wings clipped because he was endangering 21 other guys. As for his poor coverage in the endzone, it was attributed to a miscommunication. That's bullshit, and a recipe for missing the playoffs.

If we're going to win in Cleveland, we're going to have to shut off the run in the first half and with the front 3. If the Browns are keeping Casey Hampton on the field in the 4th, it'll be a much closer game than we want to play.