Something's amiss so far with LOB

It's great that Earl got INT against the Bengals. But the lack of INT concerns me. The LOB just doesn't seem the same. They're not tenacious as they once were. Have teams figured them out or are they not playing up to their standard. The Cards picked off Stafford 3 times yesterday. The Seahawks couldn't even get one INT against him. With guys like Thomas, Sherm, Kam, you'd think they'd have more than just 1 INT this season. But that's all they have...even with Kam back something seems to have changed. My belief is that now that Richard is the DC, he's working with the secondary less and the results are showing. RIchard had a lot to do with LOB. They were able to plug in players and not lose a beat. He can't focus on one group as the DC. Thus the LOB has lost a bit of its luster. Hope they can find it back soon.

The defense still is very similiar and are playing good. Probably just not in position to get picks , and teams are probably figuring out how to minimize it also. Sherman almost had one though he just dropped it. Im sure they will get alot more picks , they already are getting turnovers. Not really worried about they defense, its the offense you should be worried about.

It's hard for them to get picks when there is so much underneath stuff going on-
bengals slanted us to death in the fourth quarter and williams got called for two huge PI's as Cinci
actually did go deep I would argue more than any team this year-

We need to fix the dink and dunk offense against our D, that is more worrisome than the picks because
that is a LOT of 3rd downs we are not coming off of the field for...

I think you may be on to something as it concerns Richard, but I'm also wondering if Earl is still a bit tentative from the injury and surgery. He just doesn't seem to be flying around like in years past. I saw a bit more of that yesterday, but he's not jumping off my TV screen yet. No preseason and limited reps on TC probably have contributed if that's indeed the case.

In my opinion it all comes down to CB play and depth.

Exhibit #1 : Carey Williams
I live in Baltimore and had to hear for a couple seasons my dad constantly complain about how bad Williams was when he was a Raven. My dad bleeds for the Ravens and absolutely hated Williams because towards the end of games you could guarantee opposing QB's would target him to death. No lead was safe with Carey on the field. He was and is, horrible.

Exhibit #2, or 1A : Depth

No Jeremy Lane, No Marcus Burley

Opposing teams learned the key to beating us in the SB last year. You don't have to beat the whole D, you just have to find the weak link and exploit it. Why does it work? because we don't scheme to mask weaknesses. Its next man up all the time. In the SB, that weakness was Simon (and to a lesser degree, Maxwell ) and Brady bled us to death picking on them ver and over. This year, its been Carey Williams. Whether in man or zone, opposing QB's are throwing his way with success.

I dont think its gonna change until we get better talent on the field and from the sounds of it, we have a couple of weeks to go yet. Burley is at times, brilliant. Lane knows the position and has proven that he can play it well. Plug those two in and i think the confidence and performance of the entire D goes up. You can see the helplessness they feel when they play soundly and someone (often C Williams) gives up a big 3rd down catch or gets called for a dumb PI penalty. And to add salt to the wound, it probably doesn't make it any easier knowing the dude was given money that would have been better spent rewarding the players already on the team. Just a crap situation all around