safety and DT, which were my two biggests concerns going in. The third biggest concern was a cornerback, especially to defend a taller WR, and the signing of Lucas has allayed that fear.

If our defense plays poorly and Hass is out for even just a small period of time, I don’t think we have much of a shot of doing better than 7-9 or 6-10. The only good news is that perhaps we’ll have two top 10 picks, and get Gerald McCoy/ Suh and Eric Berry. It sucks for Ruskell, since there weren’t any safeties or DTs in free agency, and none that were worthy of being drafted in the early first round either (though whether or not he could have traded down with the Jets, then traded down twice more like Cleveland did, and perhaps traded down a few more times like NE is another discussion).

I looked at the decline of our offense as the reason our defense stunk it up so much last season (think 07 Ravens).

Also, I don’t understand how putting Redding at his natural position, having a hopefully rehabbed Kerney (our biggest question mark I think), and Lojack with a year under his belt is a downgraded pass rush. Sure losing Peterson hurts, but overall it looks better to me.

Have some faith people! The Football Gods are not cruel enough to curse us with another 4-12 season!

and that is the complete and utter lack of John Marshall. IMHO, the Seahawks defense was so goddamn predictable and oblivious under him. I have to think that someone else — ANYONE ELSE — as the D-coord must be a step up.

I think the defense is improved compared to 2008, but maybe not enough; we’ll have to play better than the sum of our parts to become elite (and it could happen, for all we know).

Hopefully Mora’s seeming recognition of coaching talent strikes again and Bradley turns into something special.

It ain’t all that great.

Yr/Points/Yards

Atlanta
2006 15 22
2005 18 22
2004 14 14

49ers
2003 21 13
2002 18 14
2001 9 13
2000 28 29
1999 30 28

a half a sack under 1/3 of our teams total (45). If we are switching to a Tampa 2 and need to pressure the QB with our front four, our defense’s season hinges on Kerney’s shoulder.

Or hope for Jackson to take a large step forward.

Also John, did you mean to write “West Coast Defense nonsense” in the last paragraph?

I don’t know a lot about zone blitzing but it seems like our personel would work really well.

ESPN board Seahawk fans who are certain we’re going to the NFC Championship.

“Things are rarely just crazy enough to work, but they’re frequently just crazy enough to fail hilariously.” The cartoon could not be more unrelated however.

For instance, our SB roster on defense doesn’t really look better than the roster we have now. Were Herndon and Dyson better than current Trufant and Lucas? Hamlin better than Grant? How about the LBs? Certainly the LBs on our 2009 squad are better. Obviously we rode quite an offense that year, but the defense was still at least respectable. I think there’s a realistic chance that the (defensive) talent on our roster this season might be better than it was then.

I think the reason our defense was so much better in 07 than 06 or 08 was Kerney. If he is healthy enough to be effective that is instant pass rush. Now realistically there is a huge chance Kerney won’t be healthy and effective and if so our defense falls apart, but that wasn’t your argument.

Also, even is Mora is average to below average that is still a big improvement over Marshall’s stale vanilla schemes. Marshall never knew how to utilize Hill and our safety positioning last year was terrible. You choose to interpret our new coaches’ statements in the worst possible way (exclusive Tampa 2 with no blitzing and inept d-line personnel utilization) when such an interpretation requires the assumption that your argument is correct and Mora and Bradley are idiots. Maybe they are but I’m not taking your word for it.

Finally, no matter what anyone says an offense that can’t stay on the field hurts the defense. Mention could have been made of our sorry RB’s and how weakness at that position will negatively impact our ability to grind clock and keep the D rested, but you chose not to.

Rather than make a realistic analysis of the problems facing our defense you cherry-picked facts and made unwarranted assumptions in order to build your ridiculously gloomy argument. I don’t mind a little negativity but, please, at least try to make sense.

Why not hire who you think could be a defensive mastermind to work underneath you? Are we assuming Mora has some extremely huge ego or something? Look at other coaching situations and you see so-called defensive masterminds working under the head coach frequently. Rex Ryan under Billick and Harbaugh, Monte Kiffin under Gruden, Jim Johnson under Reid, etc. I would hope that the head coach wants to surround himself with the best coaches he can procure – not avoid doing so out of insecurity for one’s own job or because of ego.

 I think Mora knows that Bradley learned under Kiffin and believes is ready to take the next step, as well as help him implement the schemes we’ll run, which obviously will include some Tampa-2. The jury is out on both Bradley and Mora’s product as of yet, but I don’t think we can dismiss the addition of Bradley because he’ll work under Mora. Mora found a good fit to implement his system who comes from a solid coaching tree and specific defensive background. I guess anything short of having a Rex Ryan/Steve Spagnulo/Jim Johnson type at D-coordinator might simply be unsatisfying to some.

I agree, there is a lack of evidence. There has been the same lack of evidence for many new coaching staffs who went on to be successful. I much prefer a fresh, hungry young staff to that of a long-time retread like Green, Fassil, Vermeil, Gibbs, even the master of ‘Martyball’. I’m usually an optimist, so John’s post will help balance out my thinking, but I’m still hopeful and excited. I think we have the pieces in place to do some damage this year – and field a top-10 defense. As pointed out, above, some things will have to go right. Kerney and the DLine, especially. Hopefully, Russell plays better if he starts, or (zing!) Adams improves enough to get time.

we ought to put this in some sort of a bell curve. Defensive proficiency likelihood. For all that 2007 looks like an outlier, there has to be something quite significant for the defensive performance to NOT regress back to the mean.

I’m eagerly waiting for FO’s PDF (since they’re not publishing PFP this year) to see how Seattle fared on 3rd downs compared to 1st & 2nd, against the rest of the league. My memory of my frustrations suggest it’s more likely for this defense to rebound at least back to average than to remain horrendous.

It’s more likely that the defense remains horrendous than for it to be top 10, I think. I think the only factor that can make it great is for WCD to work out, to really be a hot new thing for the league.

But both of those are quite a bit less likely than for the defense to bounce back a bit, having some problems — most likely to me, deep pass defense/safety help, or run defense/long runs allowed, with mid-range passes generally pegged and most runs generally stuffed — and more or less being about as good as the 2005 defense. Good cumulative pressure that sometimes just isn’t there, goodish run & pass defense, generally keeping the team in every game to the end. Not so great to carry the offense. But enough to give the team a chance to win against a softish schedule.