At the start of the season, most fans expected there to be some adjustment issues as players learned a new way of playing defense. The absolute dumpster fire that was the run defense in the first three losses of the season, however, was far beyond what anyone on the Pride of Detroit staff imagined would happen (yes, Mansur kept pointing out that we learned the run defense blew chunks after all three of those games).
Jeremy Reisman’s film article on the problems stuffing the ground game after Detroit’s Week 2 loss at San Francisco highlighted a couple of familiar themes: poor angles resulting from tentative linebacker play and failed outside containment assignments.