Who do we miss the most? Schwartz or Haynesworth?

No doubt about it. Haynesworth.

Our scheme has not changed. Haynesworth taking double or triple teams allowed our Defensive ends to be good. The pressure helped the secondary. We are making busters look like probowlers against us. Losing the best defensive player in the NFL is much more important than losing Schwartz.

We had one good game against Pittsburg last year so everyone thinks Haynesworth was expendable. Guess what, we did good against them with our defense this year. Throughout a season, Haynesworth is much more valuable than Schwartz.

It's not like that Lions defense has looked very good this year.

 

Haynesworth and the Hype of Haynesworth. Double Teams. Opened everything else up. He has the talent. And he had the image of being talented. It makes all the difference. The game is both physical and psychological. Shame too. It was such an easy decision to keep the best player.

Schwartz, I dunno. Less so. But I cannot deny that he kept our Defense on the right page for a long time. He is missed today. I know that much. The team he has in Detroit is not his team. He needs at least 3 years to turn it around from a losing culture.

 

Can I vote for neither?

The sad truth is the people we're missing the most are still on the field. Hope, Griffin, Bulluck, Finnegan, Harper, Kearse, KVB. With the clear exception of Tulloch I'm not sure any defensive player is playing up to his own standards. Obviously that points to coaching and Cecil - but the ghosts of Big Al and Schwartz aren't causing the defense to bite on every fake and not get off blocks. If I saw good fundamentals and still got bad results, I'd say Schwartz over Albert by a nose. But this defense would still stink with both of them back.

 

big al.....no questin

were sucking and from what i read he's not like he was. if D calling was such a problem fish would have taken over the duties this i no; so obviously its not that.

big al was good enough to make 3 probowlers out of what loooks today to be a very mediocre secondary.

 

Not calling you out RCarie, but wasn't our Vaunted D ranked #7 overall last year?

I still think it should've been ranked much higher, but the coaching was holding us back from being pure explosive.

 

But that's been the case for the past 5 years, Schwartz did the same thing, the only thing different was Fat Al.

 

You said it yourself...

This defense is built like the old Tampa D under Dungy. Pressure with the front 4, aggressive secondary zone coverage, and flow to the ball vs the run. Without pressure from the front 4, our Pro Bowl secondary looks more like a college secondary. But we've seen around the league...no pressure and it doesn't matter who you have covering.

I thought we'd miss Haynesworth more vs the run since we have some good DT pass rushers, but I'm surprised how ineffective KVB has been. Additionally, the execution of the defensive playcalls, coverage breakdowns, and miscommunications have been even more surprising.

I don't think Cecil is in over his head in terms of just running the D. He may be in terms of 'fixing' these problems that a vet D shouldn't be having. Even when the play calls are perfect, someone(s) seem to find a way to negate them.

I doubt Schwartz could do anything different with this group seeing as it took him years (WITH HAYENSWORTH) to even get this D respectable. He's having the same problems in Detroit. He's no Rex Ryan!

Having Haynesworth back would make a HUGE difference...but so what. That doesn't change where we are...just identifies the problems more effectively. Question is, how do you FIX these problems?

Gut

 

Aren't they kind of one in the same? I mean Schwartz is doing nothing without Haynesworth, Haynesworth is doing nothing without Schwartz, and worst of all we can't do a single thing right because they're both gone. I miss Haynesworth way more if I had to pick one. I'd even take Adam Jones and Andre Woolfolk back at this point. 0-4 is a cold dark place meant for the Raiders, and or other disgraces of the league. This is no place for the Titans.

 

we dont miss albert haynesworth...i love albert dont get me wrong...he was the player who got me to play defensive tackle when i used to watch him as a kid at UT..but we didnt need him. he played 2 good years for us and last year wasnt even that good...we have the best defensive line coach and i have faith in our line...Jason jones is going to become a star as he grows up under this dline we have great depth...we miss schwartz...bad really bad..he knew how to put our backfield in position to make plays and with cecil here all he does is sit back and say "Ok pass on us we will do our best" he doesnt know how to read the offense and predict what they are going to be running..its a huge chess game and apparently cecil doesnt know which ways the pieces go...we get pressure on the qb but not the type we had with haynesworth because he is just big.. we smacked garrard around during the game but still got passed all over...remember...we beat the superbowl steelers last year without haynesworth we didnt need him then and we dont need him now...

 

Neither. As others have already pointed out our defensive philosophy hasn't changed, our execution however has.

The only thing I noticed yesterday was that we often play vanilla on the line (speedrushing ends and bullrushing tackles), but we're not getting there. However when we did do line stunts we seemed to get a lot more pressure on Garrard. Which caused me to think about last year, how we'd mix things up, lining Haynesworth up at end, stunting inside or outside, etc. to keep the O-line guessing.

And then of course we're missing tackles left and right...