Not playing man is in the defensive game plan. If you watch 1 Winning Drive: Highlights of 2nd Half (3:81 mark), you can see Jimmy ask Teryl if it's okay to "press them" now and he gives them the go ahead since they needed to be more aggressive and get a stop. It's still early but the defense might be adopting a bend and not break style of defense against these elite quarterbacks so they don't get beat for the home run pass. When you exclude the Welker pass, the strategy worked pretty well. Brady nickle and dimed the defense for all those yards.
I for one hate seeing our 6 foot 2 corners playing off their men because that is obviously not their style of play and hope that they let them loose in the coming weeks. We need to get some teeth back in our secondary. When we finally started to press their receivers at the line Brady started to throw many more incompletions and Webb got what should have been a game deciding interception. LET THEM PLAY THEIR GAME.
You are 100% correct. We are currently a bend but don't break defense and the guys are struggling because it's just not our game. Each of the first 3 games the defense struggled with quick screen type passes. The only team that able get the ball down field was the Eagles, but mainly because the option Vick presents to run. We got caught out of position in the Eagle game more then anything.
This game Brady just did a great job of taking advantage of the fact the D wasn't getting set, plus that bend but don't break style is exactly what Brady feeds on, because he's able to stay clean and scan the field.
Imo there wasn't much surprise that once our D was allowed to play aggressive like usual, Brady looked like his normal self against the Ravens. Even though the Webb call was correct, it still was a poor decision made by Brady to even attempt that throw. The Ravens confused Brady in the 4th quarter, just like we confused Dalton late in game 1 and the only reason Vick had his 4thn quarter success was because of that prevent style we played on the final drive.
Right now it's smart for the Ravens to play that bend but don't break style, because of the overall youth of the Defense. These young guys up front are starting to play better, and that will allow the backend to play their aggressive style they like..
I would be surprised if the defense didn't come out in attack mode against the Browns and have a game similar to the SF game last year. Why? Because there's not much to respect on the Browns offense. It's basically stop the run and make Weeden beat u