Do you think our defence has improved?

I was just wondering if you think our defence has improved.

Free Agent Defense Signings Recap:

Free Agency:
We have signed MLB Will Witherspoon, DT LaRoi Glover, SS/FS Corey Chavous, CB Fakhir Brown, SLB Raonall Smith. Witherspoon, Glover, and Chavous are already Starters. Brown and Smith have chances of being Starters.

Draft Defense Recap:
!st round CB Tye Hill, 3rd round DT Claude Wroten, WLB/SS Jon Alston, 4th round DE Victor Adeyanju, 7th round MLB Tim McGarigle. I know that Hill has a chance to start and thats all. Does Claude Wroten have a chance?

I Vote Yes!
But Shouldn't It Be Spelled.....

D-E-F-E-N-S-E!

I voted yes.
As soon as Marmie left, the defense improved. Only big loss in free agency was Pickett. The additions are a big upgrade including Haslett and his new staff. Defensive players drafted look like they have some promise also. We'll soon find out.....

Maineram - :helmet:

Our Defense improved tremendously, maybe one of the most improved, but we still ned to add a solid DT.

I have to agree with maineram, as soon as Marmie left the whole unit improved. He had a track record of abject failure as an NFL DC.

If you add in what I see as personnel upgrades across the front seven and secondary then I think the view that the D has improved could be unqualified.

A minor concern would be depth a DT as well as CB and S.

I think that Haslett will get them to be a solid Defensive unit, not dominating but competitive enough to make the difference in a couple of games at least.

I, too, am in agreement about Marmie leaving as an improvement. The rest remains to be seen.

We truly did improve even without seeing how they play this season, we already know its better just from the subtraction of Marmie and the addition of Haslett, its really been an incredible off-season for us, I think we're under the radar when it comes to the draft and the free agency, I don't think a lot of people realize how great it was for us, they'll see though in September, and then we'll all be laughing

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Originally Posted by maineram

I voted yes.
As soon as Marmie left, the defense improved. Only big loss in free agency was Pickett. The additions are a big upgrade including Haslett and his new staff. Defensive players drafted look like they have some promise also. We'll soon find out.....

Maineram - :helmet:

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Yes indeed, remember a lot those guys played under Lovie. It's clear that those guys just wouldn't play for Marmie. I don't understand how he came here in the first place. He won't get another job. The question is will our Defense buy into Hasletts system. If they do then we have the pieces to have a top 10 D.

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Originally Posted by Fat Pang

I have to agree with maineram, as soon as Marmie left the whole unit improved. He had a track record of abject failure as an NFL DC.

If you add in what I see as personnel upgrades across the front seven and secondary then I think the view that the D has improved could be unqualified.

A minor concern would be depth a DT as well as CB and S.

I think that Haslett will get them to be a solid Defensive unit, not dominating but competitive enough to make the difference in a couple of games at least.

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We have plenty of Depth at CB.

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Originally Posted by Varg6

We truly did improve even without seeing how they play this season, we already know its better just from the subtraction of Marmie and the addition of Haslett, its really been an incredible off-season for us, I think we're under the radar when it comes to the draft and the free agency, I don't think a lot of people realize how great it was for us, they'll see though in September, and then we'll all be laughing

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I hope you're right. I do like being under the radar cause teams don't take you as seriously.

The D's better. But I want to be above the radar man. I want to be a major player in this league. I liked seeing us in the media everywhere. And I liked every team in the league taking a shot at us and drafting just to counter the RAMS schems. I want to be AMERICAS TEAM. And if not that then I want everyone else to hate us. Give us the attention; that's all sports is.

Its hard not to be improved after last year however, is that saying much? Our D line hasn't really improved, our LB's are ok, and our secondary is a work in progress.

I think the defense will improve based on 2 things. First, they were ranked very low and only have room to improve. Second, the addition of Haslett and new personnel should get them back to the middle of the pack.
However, I am not going to jump on the "The defense was horrible because of Larry Marmie" bandwagon. I am not saying he was a great coordinator. I think he is average. Considering the place and time he was in the NFL, most coordinators would not have had success in Pheonix and with the state of the Rams defensive personnel the past two seasons. Maybe his schemes were not great, but a scheme can't work when a DT like Kennedy gets single blocked and taken out of a play consistenty, the LB's always getting caught up in the "trash" and making bad reads, DE's who are unable to contain a ball carrier in their area, safeties who shouldn't even be in the league with their lack of ability to cut off the angle on a ball carrier. Is it Marmie's fault that Claiborn and Coakley were useless? Was it Marmies fault that Pisa made a "bad" play for every good one? Did Adam Archuleta do anything other than intercept a pass from McNair and return it for a TD? Is Anthony Hargrove the best the Rams can put on the field at RDE?
The coordinator is not going to make the Rams defense great, the players will.

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Originally Posted by live4ramin

The D's better. But I want to be above the radar man. I want to be a major player in this league. I liked seeing us in the media everywhere. And I liked every team in the league taking a shot at us and drafting just to counter the RAMS schems. I want to be AMERICAS TEAM. And if not that then I want everyone else to hate us. Give us the attention; that's all sports is.

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We're under the radar because of last year's horrendous playing on Defense. I'm saying once we play a few games, espn and all them will start realizing like wow the Rams are the real deal this year when it comes to Defense and a huge improvement in that area. Everybody knows we're a great offensive team, that won't change for a LONG time...

I beleive that we haven't gotten better than we were last year. I believe that we lost some key players and if anything we are only where we were last year. But before I do that I'm going to take some time to "discuss" some of the problems that scodanri brought up. First of all, all of our problems came from the worthless man known as Maramie. He was 194 years old. He was trying to take his system and force it down the defense when our defense wasn't made to play that type of game. The defense is still trying to change since the days of Lovie. Back when he was in-charge, the hard-hitting lay you out guys were replaced with the quick fast guys that could intercept the ball and get the god of all offenses back out onto the field. Since he's left and Maramie came in, the defense has yet to be defined. We lost the mind behind the scheme and the players lost their speed. Leaving us with slower players that can't hit the ball carrier hard.

Then we have guys that we had that did hit you hard. They were Adam Archuletta and Ryan "Grease" Pickett. Adam was the safety that everyone wanted. He reminds me of Ed Reed. The hard hitting, pass intercepting, call seeking player that we all admired. And if you didn't cheer when you watched a Rams game and Archuletta layed someone out..........then something is very wrong with you. Ryan Pickett was a great player. He was the kind of player that we needed. He would play hard every day. He took up size and area, and was always around the ball.

As for Claiborne and Coakley. Claiborne was never played. He was taken out of the game day in and day out. They always chose to go with Coakley and "Tino". So he never saw any playing time. Not his fault that they DB's were so bad that they needed 5 people to cover the pass. Is it also "Tino's" fault that he had no blocking up front and that was the only good LB after Coakley went down for the season? I wouldn't be talking smack about Anthony Hargrove either. He took on Steve Hutchinson one game and pushed him backwards. As if that wasn't enough, he went around him and tackeled Alexander in the backfield. He shared time with Green all the time. So how do you expect him to show what he can do, when he always has to share time.

In my mind, we made a significant upgrade at the defensive position the minute that we let go of Maramie. He was worthless. I think another big mistake was letting go of Archuletta. Chaveaus is not an upgrade over this guy at all. If anything he just matches his skills. I can't really comment on if Witherspoon is an upgrade or not, because we never really saw Claiborne in the games. The defensive line took a hit. We lost 2 DT's. But Glover definately was a great addition. But in the end, I think we'll just have to see what happens. They could end up being very good or matching the quality of last years team.