After this remarkable turnaround, do you want Haslett back now?

[doghouse4x4]

Short of Wade Phillips or Rex Ryan, I can't see anyone upgrading Haslett. He's not going to give you as much upside, but he can get a lot more out of lower talent than most. With some secondary help, he can field a pretty serviceable defense.

[The Robert Griffin Experience]

Your points lead right into my point of view. Do we have ANY of the playmakers that the Steelers had in the past 5 years (not counting this year)? Do we have a Polamalu? A Harrison? A Timmons? A Hampton? A Keisal? Or even a Clark? No. We simply do not have the talent to play an aggressive Pittsburgh style defense. We do not have the linebackers that can pass rush and cover as well and we certainly do not have the safeties to cover deep or double cover receivers.

Do we need All-Pro players to run an aggressive defense?

If Harrison and Woodley are a 92/100 each, then Orakpo and Kerrigan are an 86 each at worst. Also Harrison has fallen off a cliff this year and they're still decent.
If Hampton is a 95 as a NT, then Cofield is an 83-85.
Fletcher was way better than Timmons last year, and is probably playing at least as well this year as he has rebounded from his initial slump. Riley is playing at a high level.
Bowen is as good if not better than Keisel.
The Steelers have averageish corners just like we do.

Seriously, the whole Haslett defense centering around "we have noooo talent" is so ridiculous. We have talent, it's just being misused.

Doesn't matter if we do not have Dick LeBeau. Even LeBeau cannot scheme with players who are not capable of doing multiple things well and can cover receivers.[/QUOTE]

[WilberMarshall]

Seriously, the whole Haslett defense centering around "we have noooo talent" is so ridiculous. We have talent, it's just being misused.

Couldn't agree more...

I wish more fans had the opportunity of watching games in person. His schemes are bad. Without pressure via the blitz we are toast. I was so disgusted with the Eagles game, I almost had a heart attack. They better junk the Eagles Defensive Game plan.

We got extremely lucky... it reminded me of the second half of the Thanksgiving game.

---------- Post added December-28th-2012 at 07:49 PM ----------

As Kyle has shown, you're only as good as your players....

Not true, Kyle's offense even with Turn Over machine, Sexy Rexy was good... folks got open regularly.

[2cents]

Ok...real quick, compare Palimalu and Clark to Williams and Doughty.

[KDawg]

Ok...real quick, compare Palimalu and Clark to Williams and Doughty.

Easiest question I've been asked in quite some time. I have no idea who Palimalu is and Ryan Clark is a former Redskins who by virtue he doesn't count. That means Williams and Doughty are better. Boom. I have spoken.

[darrelgreenie]

Ok...real quick, compare Palimalu and Clark to Williams and Doughty.

Add that to playing without Orakpo and Kerrigan for most of the season, in addition to a banged up Fletcher and playing without a 3rd CB/NB for most of the season.

[WilberMarshall]

Ok...real quick, compare Palimalu and Clark to Williams and Doughty.

Madieu is better playing close to the line of scrimmage. He is HORRENDOUS in coverage. He lacks range and when opposing QBs sense that he is the one playing deep safety are encouraged to go deep. His ball sense is below average his reaction time is bad... The thing I like is that they are putting other parts in at deep safety. But it was Haz and co that choose Madieu. Funny thing, fans were saying the same thing about BB until the coaches finally sacked up and benched him. I rather have Doughty back there. He does not make mental errors... his limitation is based on his talent level (athletic ability).

You can't call 2 deep zone with safeties that don't have the range.

---------- Post added December-28th-2012 at 08:14 PM ----------

Add that to playing without Orakpo and Kerrigan for most of the season, in addition to a banged up Fletcher and playing without a 3rd CB/NB for most of the season.

I guess you did not watch last season games either? You forgot how bad we were on 3rd and longs last year?

[skins island connection]

Easiest question I've been asked in quite some time. I have no idea who Palimalu is and Ryan Clark is a former Redskins who by virtue he doesn't count. That means Williams and Doughty are better. Boom. I have spoken.

+, when Clark was here, he was doing the same thing Williams is doing now; biting HARD on play action.

[Koolblue13]

We don't have a cover safety, let alone a great one. We have good safeties against the run. IMO of course.

[Dirt]

I just don't know about Has. But as for our players, I would like to go ahead and just copy Pete Carrol (he's copying our offense anyway ), and get some big/tall DBs. I ate a little crow to my Seahawks buddies about how Carrol is being simple minded and dumb to just field a bunch of tall guys, just to have tall guys. But it works. Sure, maybe they're just better players, but what you notice, and what's said about the Seahawks is how imposing and rough the guys are. They have long arms and just envelop guys during catches. They're very sure tacklers. I'll take a couple penalties with that playstyle, we get enough bull**** ones trying to do the right thing anyway. I want that. I want Seattle's secondary.

Did you know our tallest DB is Reed Doughty? lol at 6'-1, along with Madoodoo but forget madoodoo.

[darrelgreenie]

I guess you did not watch last season games either? You forgot how bad we were on 3rd and longs last year?

Sure I watched last year when the defense was ranked 13th. But, I'm talking about this season though.

[2cents]

We had lousy safties last year too. Remember Williams and Doughty are safties three and five on the depth chart. Most teams would have trouble with their entire back up safties for a game or two. We have had our entire back up safety crew for 16.

[SKINSFAN87]

I would still part ways cuz I don't see him as a motivational coach and I don't think that he has much to do with the six game win streak as the offense is what's carrying this team. I would like to see someone who has more fire and can actually call good defensive plays on a consistent basis. Haslett at times has called the right plays, but he isn't consistent.

[NLC1054]

This is incredible.

I can't remember the amount of times threads have been started talking about what a horrible job Kyle Shanahan was doing over the last three years, and even now, people have said "Pfft, who needs Kyle, we've got RG3, let him walk, we don't need him". And quite a few people defiantly stated that injuries and bad personnel and bad quarterbacks didn't matter, Kyle wasn't getting the job done, and that he was only here because of his last name. If Kyle let a slightly more smelly than usual far rip and it moderately annoyed RG3, there would be a 20 page long thread about why he should be fired for it.

And yet in three years, with a lot of money and draft picks poured into the defense, with total autonomy over that defense in terms of what talent stays and goes, and producing a defense that ranked in the bottom half of the league for three years, and only producing a defense that ranked in the top half of the league 3 times (and even then, the Steelers defense wasn't as good as it had been before or after he became DC), people still want to give Haslett the benefit of the doubt, because his defense, while still sucking, hasn't sucked quite as bad.

In fact, somehow, some way, this is really all Mike Shanahan's fault, because he knows how much control Haslett really has over his defense. And why isn't Raheem getting more blame!

Seems like more people want to blame just about every other coach and player on the staff besides Haslett for sucking.

[2cents]

So if he had his full deck of players this year, and we were a top ten D, which IMO we would be, what would your opinion of him be then?