CB Jimmy Smith

[SecretAgentMan]

Jimmy had a solid game yesterday......

Not too mad at him, more mad at Jah and Doss to point out the one error the guy made.

[izvoodoo]

His (surprisingly) suspect tackling, poor zone coverage ability, and inability to flip his hips and change direction smoothly suggest he'd be a mediocre SS. He may have the size, but he doesn't have the skills. 

His tackling has been solid.  I wouldn't call him a minus tackler.

 

His hips have improved, that's probably been his biggest improvement, is turning upfield and running.

[The Raven]

His tackling has been solid.  I wouldn't call him a minus tackler.

 

So far this year, yeah, I would agree. 

 

However, there was a long stretch last year where his tackling was mediocre at best.

[gabefergy]

Jimmy had one play that I thought was poor, when he let Lafell get wide open over the middle. He was playing in a zone and was really slow in flipping his hips and sticking with the receiver. Fortunately Lafell dropped the ball, and of course no one will remember it.

[izvoodoo]

So far this year, yeah, I would agree. 

 

However, there was a long stretch last year where his tackling was mediocre at best.

For a CB though he's never really been bad.  It's tough for corners.  Webb and Graham are great tacklers, and a lot of corners make this team by being special teams players.  But it's tough for corners to tackle because it's much more in the open field.

[The Raven]

For a CB though he's never really been bad.  It's tough for corners.  Webb and Graham are great tacklers, and a lot of corners make this team by being special teams players.  But it's tough for corners to tackle because it's much more in the open field.

 

Fair point. I suppose I hold him to higher standards as a tackler because he's touted as a big, strong, press cover corner who is good in run support. That type of corner is usually a strong tackler, for obvious reasons.

[izvoodoo]

Fair point. I suppose I hold him to higher standards as a tackler because he's touted as a big, strong, press cover corner who is good in run support. That type of corner is usually a strong tackler, for obvious reasons.

Yeah, when Nnamdi was good he would crush people.  He took guys out of games.  Jimmy's a wrap up guy. But he's been sort of an average tackler.  Not a play maker in support, but still decent.

[MTRavensFan]

So far this year, yeah, I would agree. 

 

However, there was a long stretch last year where his tackling was mediocre at best.

There was a long stretch last year when he was playing hurt.

He looked a lot more solid after the sports hernia surgery.

[beanfigger]

Jimmy had one play that I thought was poor, when he let Lafell get wide open over the middle. He was playing in a zone and was really slow in flipping his hips and sticking with the receiver. Fortunately Lafell dropped the ball, and of course no one will remember it.

I'll bet the coaches watching film remember it.

[Bullrush]

Pretty sure Bullrush was the one calling everyone out for being able to identify the obvious...

 

Why don't people like our keyboard scout in here understand that ASSUMING or PROBABLY doesn't mean IN FACT? Can you guarantee me 100% that you know for a fact that everyone plays their assignment and does what he's supposed to do 100% of the time on any given play? For some reason I doubt that. So stop thinking that if you see Graham stay outside and give up the inside means he was supposed to give up the inside, and then blame the safety for sticking with his man instead of doing Corey's job and cover the guy inside to prevent the catch. You can't figure out coverages 100% by just looking at a replay, it's absolutely absurd to say that. All that is based on an illusion / assumption that you think everyone does their job and therefore it must be coverage so and so. However, one guy not doing what he's supposed to do changes all that and gives you a wrong picture, and you don't know when that happens, it could be multiple guys, could be one guy who plays zone instead of man, tries to read the QB instead of playing man, gambles instead of sticking with his guy, then suddenly there's other holes opening up in the coverage, somebody tries to do that guys job instead of sticking with his guy and now his guy is wide open, and he gets blamed. It's way more complicated than the 2-3 guys in here that think they've figured it all out believe. That was exactly Jimmy's point, people on the outside have NO idea what goes on inside, what the calls are or who is supposed to do what. And that's why they were bashing Jimmy, because they didn't know. But again, we'll have our Rex Ryans in here that have never played football before that sit on a couch and watch ESPN highlights for 12 minutes on a Sunday trying to explain the game of football to the rest of the world. Jon Ogden when he called the game vs the Falcons doesn't know what the coverage was when he watched the replay to explain what happened, which is why he didn't say this guy did that wrong or that guy did this wrong, he was just throwing out what he's assuming and he made that clear. If you think anything is obvious without really knowing anything except what you think you see then we really don't have to argue about this. It's getting redundant. Let's just agree that we just happen to have like 2-3 of the sharpest football minds in the world on this board. Somebody should pitch them to Ozzie, I'm sure we could use guys that just by looking at a replay can figure out 100% for sure what any offense or defense is playing on any snap. And I'm being serious, that's what coaches or scouts do all day. But of course it takes something called football knowledge to get a job like that and that's why we're stuck with the Rex Ryan wannabes in here. At least they can explain the game of football to other average Joe's, might make them feel like they're really smart who knows.

 

Anyway, that's it from me in terms of this issue. Since this is a Jimmy Smith thread let's get back to topic. He's had his ups and downs so far, he's played very well for the most part, in the first game, in camp, and actually he played well in the 2nd game as well from my point of view. Ryan didn't throw the ball in his direction early on even though he was on Julio Jones, and he had pretty good/tight coverage on all those plays. So now in his 3rd game he once again had a really good game in my book, I don't get why people try to make it look like he's had 3 bad games and a bad offseason/camp and needs to turn it around. It's the other way around, he's been very good so far and he needs to keep it up and make more strides of course in order to become a really good starter. But so far I'm happy with Jimmy. He certainly outplayed Graham in the preseason and looks way more fluid and natural in coverage.

[beasy2487]

I think what we've been seeing and hearing from Jimmy teaches us something about CB assignments in our defensive scheme. We always used to complain about Cary Williams playing so far off receivers and more recently we were complaining about Jimmy doing it. I always assumed it must be a scheme thing relative to our "bend but don't break" mentality during the Harbs era on defense (exception: Pagano in 2011). However now, with Pees recent comments about "a certain technique" Jimmy can use that he doesn't (read: jamming receivers at the line) and Jimmy's comments about "giving guys too much credit", clearly it's up to the corner himself as to half aggressive he wants to play.

 

I think that Chargers game in '11 really spooked Jimmy regarding double moves and he lost confidence in his ability to body guys up. Right now it seems like we're seeing that confidence come back and if he can stay disciplined, read his keys, and get solid help over the top when he needs it we could finally see the emergence of The Jimmy.