State of the Franchise: The Secondary

[bulldog]

I did a thread comparing Lauvao vs Pinkston. Now I'm going to take a look at the secondary. All stats among players played 50 %.

The Corners

The first player here is Joe Haden. He's has the huge task of covering a teams best WR every game. Lets see how he did.

Key Stats;
Completion against- 49.4% (t-9th best)
Avg YPC- 15.6 (58th)
Avg YAC- 5.7
TD- 3
PD- 17 (1st)
QB rating- 87.2 (39th)

Did you know?- Joe had only 3 missed tackles, 2nd among all CB's.

-In PFF's ranking, for coverage, Joe is ranked 5th. He's also ranked 12th against the run.

What he must improve upon- Joe had a total of 9 penalties called against him.( Three declined). 5th WORST among CB's.

The Verdict- His QB rating would improve greatly if some of the PD's would turn into picks. His stats would indicate that he was either glued to his guy, or gave up a play. He's proving that he's a complete corner being effective in the run game as well. Joe just turn 23 in April, and he's in the same system for the second year. With a (hopefully) improved pass rush, we should see a improvement. If this was in sophomore slump, I can wait to see how he responds.


--Next up is Sheldon Brown. The "over the hill, he can't run anymore, he needs to play FS" guy.

Key Stats;
Completion against- 46.1% (5th)
Avg YPC- 13.9 (45th)
Avg YAC- 4.4
TD- 2
PD- 8 (T- 21st)
QB rating- 64.9 (12th)

Did you know?- Brown had 4 penalties against him. Tied for 29th.

-In PFF's ranking, for coverage, Brown is ranked 26th. He's also ranked 65th against the run. (yea, thats right)

What he must improve upon- He had 9 missed tackles, 13th most by CBs. Also only had 8 stops, tied for 58th.

The Verdict- He can still cover, contrary to what some think. Problem is, he forgot how to tackle. It seems being man-to-man most of the time may not be he best chance. He's best in a zone where he can keep his face to the LOS.


--Now we have Dimitri Patterson. He received a somewhat wealthy contract for what most thought was a "solid" year. I'm not going to do his rankings b/c he didn't play 50% of the snaps.

Key Stats;
Completion against- 52.2
Avg YPC- 12.3
Avg YAC- 6.17
TD- 0
PD- 11
QB rating- 72.3

Did you know?- Patterson is a slot corner. And a very good one. From the slot, He allowed ONE reception for every TWELVE snaps. 4th best of EVERY CB that plays the slot. Other key stats from the slot

Completions against- 48%
YPC-12
YAC- 6.3
QB rating- 66.2 (5th)

-In PFF's ranking, for coverage, Patterson is ranked 17th(among ALL CBs). He's also ranked 74th against the run.

What he must improve upon- Its hard to find a fault for a guy that was only on the field in Nickle packages. And he played that role very well. His ranking against the run is terrible, but he didn't see many opportunities either.

The Verdict- What we asked him to do, he did at a very high level. He was one of the most underrated FA signings of last year. While is numbers are very average on the outside, they are incredible in the slot. Thats a very difficult position to play and its easy to see why Heckert re-signed him.


--Last up is Bust Skrine. The guy that lit up the combine and caught the FO's eye late in the draft.

Key Stats;
Completion against- 53.3
Avg YPC- 10.9
Avg YAC- 2.2
TD- 1
PD- 1
QB rating- 65.1

Did you know?- Buster Skrine hold the second fastest 3-cone drill at the NFL combine since 1999 with a 6.44.

-its difficult to judge how well he did compared to others. He was only targeted 15 times, allowing 8 Rec.

What he must improve upon-He a young, talented player. Everything.

The Verdict- He's a young promising player that the coaches are very high on.


The Safeties

T.J. "trauma" Ward- the reach in the second round.

Key Stats;
Completion against- 54.5% (15th)
Avg YPC- 10.2 (4th)
Avg YAC- 4.5
TD- 4
PD- 2
QB rating- 110.2 (15th worst)

Did you know?- Ward had 2 missed tackles, T- 3rd best for Safeties.

-In PFF's ranking, for coverage, Ward is ranked 36th. He's also ranked 7th against the run.

What he must improve upon- His coverage skills.

The Verdict- He's a thumper. He had 11 stops in the first 7 games. Personally, I think the coaches were still trying to figure out how to use him the first couple of weeks.


--Usama Young. "I don't make tackles 50 yards down field"

Key Stats;
Completion against- 68.2 (49th)
Avg YPC- 10.6 (12th)
Avg YAC- 3.4
TD- 0
PD- 1
QB rating- 70.1 (14th)

Did you know?- He's losing is starting job to the 248th draft pick in the 2011 draft.

What he must improve upon- A little bit of everything.

The Verdict- He's actually a decent "in the box" safety. Ranking 13th with One stop every 8.1 plays when playing within 8 yards of the LOS. He's actually second in PFF tackling efficiency chart. Seems when he misses, he misses big.


--Eric Hagg

Key Stats;
Completion against- 66.7
Avg YPC- 10.7
Avg YAC- 3.5
TD- 1
PD- 1
QB rating- 124.3

Did you know?- He had 2 missed tackles in only 182 snaps

The Verdict- its really hard to judge him since he didn't play much. We'll see what the FO see in him and if he'll continue to start ahead of Young.

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To me, Our weak link is the safeties. There has been alot of health issues there, so hopefully something clicks this year. Mike Adams was the 7th best ranked Safety last year according to PFF. We'll see how much his loss in noticed. If thats not discouraging, Young ranked 46th in their coverage rank.

The Corners give up too much YPC. Its a number, that as a group, may be the worst in the league. They are better than some have given them credit for, but more TO's should be expected from this group. Less big plays.

[mistakebytehlak]

the weak link for every team in the NFL save the Steelers and a handful of other teams is the safeties. the safety crop in the NFL imo is pretty historically weak.
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[MSURacerDT55]

[roger murdock]

Great post. Lots of good stats.

I wonder if we will do better swapping Patterson to the outside on Nickle packages so hes needed less in run support.

Skrine had one of the coolest picks last year, the elbow INT!

Your part on Usama Young was hilarious.
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[bulldog]

[bruceb]

The secondary scares me, to be blunt, particularly since it could have been a strength, along with LB or DE, if we hadn't spent the pick on Weeden.

He had better be damned good immediately and for his short-life.

Because otherwise we passed (pun intended) up a chance to fortify our D for a longer term than he will have in the NFL.
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Everything happens exactly the way it is supposed to happen...otherwise, it would happen some other way

[Dawgpoun8017]

[Kiwibrown]

are there any good coverage safetys out there?
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I survived Johannesburg, 2013.

[Reginaldm9]

[Dawgpoun8017]

[DawgSoldier]

[bulldog]

[cattleman78]

If you look around the league our def. backfield on paper is pretty good. I do think one of our top three picks next year probably will be another corner or safety. As far as Weeden goes if he gives us a good q.b. for 6-8 years it gives us time to find a replacement.
I think our team is not only adding quility starters but good depth.
If we can control the clock more with Richardson,Weeden and Schwartz that will help the defense also. Guards need to step up also.
In closing there is a lot to like about this roster.
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browns and indian fan 7272

[bigdogsandiego]

I just do not understand Heckert at times. Our secondary is average at best and we need it to be our strength in our division especially D backs that can tackle. This draft was one of the strongest in CB and weakest in S. However for FS, we had a chance to draft Martin in 3rd rd and Ioka in 4th rd which would have resolved our S position. Also, we really need a shutdown corner in lieu of Brown and we had several pricey FA's and numerous CB's in the draft. Hughes better be the real deal as we could have selected a DB. Wade was a 7th rd pick and not the answer as we clearly missed an opportunity to pick up at least one starting caliber defensive back in FA or draft.

[ditchdigger]