This is the key component to beating us right now. St Louis, SF, Detroit all beat us doing it...Packers and NE were very close to beating us doing it too. If we cant get consistnet pressure and coverage over the middle teams are gonna eat us up all day doing this, and its very frustrating to watch. Now I am not a strategic guru so not sure what the answer is, but Id suggest it begins with dialing up more blitzes from the LB's......Dont think we get into the backfield enough this way. For me the cardinals are excellent at it, and we should be taking a leaf out of their book. Not sure what others think?

Agree. I've been saying for a long time, we cannot, just cannot stop 5-12 yard passes. And as soon as the defending coach recognizes that, the rest of the game is very painful to watch.

I, too, am not an X's and O's kinda guy so I don't know what needs to happen. But I'm pretty sure we need more pressure (make that any pressure) up front and it's just not happening.

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Terry
(The Lurker)

Tampa 2 is useful, but we do it far too much and teams are attacking what they're expecting, which is the Tampa 2. The difference between a standard cover 2 and a Tampa 2 is the depth of the zone drop of the MLB. Other than that they're the same. Safeties have deep half and the corners have the flat while also covering back to the 10 yard area on the sideline. OLBs are stressed more in the short zones in the Tampa 2 and teams have been eating away at that making our OLBs choose between the various out and in patterns by TEs, slot, and backs. They're crossing it up a lot. TE will run an out and they'll run a HB or FB angle underneath or have the TE cross the face of a LB in a cross or in pattern and sneak the HB outside. Slot WRs are obviously getting into the action too. Teams have been sending a guy in the deep seam and running Wagner off deep and beating us up underneath. Classic way to attack the TAMPA 2. They're also getting into that area between the safety and CB along the sideline. Again, stressing the CB to make a choice to come up shallow or get deeper. A good example of this would be some of our red zone D. On the one touchdown Browner wasn't going to let Megatron get behind him and left the other WR in the flat. He was too late and it was a TD. FF a couple quarters and you have Sherman in that scenario on the other side of the field. Sherman let Megatron get behind him because he also has to worry about the receiver in the flat. Sherman took the shallow part of the zone and the safety didn't get over. Classic way to attack the cover 2 AND tampa 2. Luckly Megatron dropped the TD.

These things aren't that complicated and we're not adjusting. We're not mixing up our coverages near enough and teams are figuring out what they can attack. No one is attacking a particular player on our D. They're attacking our predictable design.

Either Gus or Pete REALLY needs to step it up. Not sure who, be need better diversity and better mixture.

It would help if we had some linebackers that were good at pass coverage..

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You are absolutely entitled to state your opinion whenever you wish, and I am absolutely entitled to point out the stupidity of that opinion with the same frequency.

I read an article a while back, and it was opining that the "dink and dunk" is where the NFL is going now. With the increased awareness and efficiency of pass rush, along with more and more CBs that are getting larger, faster and more physical, offenses are finding it increasingly hard to go vertical. Ironically enough, our offense is built to go more vertical than most teams. A rugged, run based offense with good play action is a better recipe to go deep than a spread offense.

Look at the QBs with the best stats, Brady, Rodgers, Stafford, etc. and all those guys have a superior short and intermediate pass game, with receivers that get good yards after the catch.

I think it's tremendously ironic that Matt Flynn was castigated in the preseason (and in some of his NFL starts) for dinking and dunking, with people calling him "Capt. Checkdown" among other things, when that is how the most successful QBs are operating now. Wilson has become very good with the long ball, but I think our offense would flourish more if he could master the quick slants and checkdowns that would move the chains.

Very quick passes, and "dinking and dunking" or quick hitters are very hard to get a pass rush against, and without a very good secondary, it's hard to stop, really.

We don't dink and dunk enough on offense and we don't work on changing to defend the dink and dunk on defense.

Play calling and defensive scheming has been off this year, and while we are better this year than last, were a long way from being elite or even good enough to win in the playoffs.

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It's N-F-SEAAAAA (C) Hawks