No lead is safe with this D. Even if it got the ball back, & got off the field, we lost. A bunch. In a row. And this D played a "softer" D in the end of the year. Not sure whether that is coincidence, but it seems unlikely.
This blame is warranted in my opinion. We kept getting torched by the same things all season. Deciding to blame the coach or players for bad season? So whichever is picked gives the other a pass. You can't divorce the scheme from the play anymore than splitting the dancer from the dance. If a coach can put you in the best position to win, he can also put you in a position to lose. Did you feel better about us and our D at the end of the season or the first part. Horton kept part of his best up his sleeve. I think he is a better coach perhaps, than we have had, but the scheme he chose to run as part of his gameday wasn't successful. Flawed players amplified bad assumptions on his part. And he was too stiff minded to return to what is on paper a good attack D, but not after Thanksfiving or thereabouts.
I learned this as an ignorant fan: We can drop as many as we like, and most of the time opponents complete passes. We do not dial up pressure enough, and the three-man rarely worked. It could, but we wanted to be passive and succeed. The rush mostly disappeared, the corners' cushions got deeper, and we did not challenge receivers successfully. Haden had some great games and I salute all who succeeded.
But we got many losses to consider. If Chud called off the D, then it is on him. The "gameplan" didn't work well. Often.
If he stays, I want the stronger game, not the philosophically flawed D that never found a way to stop stuff that gouged them week in and again.
