Western Michigan Snowflakes - The Defense

Impressive debut IMO. The lone score against 1st string was aided by a 15 yard taunting call. Right after a M DB made a huge stop for no gain.

WMU is not a bad offensive team with 2 (or 3?) o-line players in their 6th year. That’s a lot of maturation and experience.

Hold on to your hats.  Its going to be a bumpy year.

I don’t like the 2 man interior DL look. I’d rather they put 3 DL there flanked by Hutchinson and Ojabo. There are more options with that look and I think another benefit is it makes it easier for the LB to see, read, & react.

I understand the problem is you’re then putting more on Ross in the middle and taking Hill-Green off the field potentially if this morphs into a 3-3-5, but I don’t like a 2 man nickel look on 1st and 10.

And Hutchinson is the real deal.

(Still pissed WMU’s two scoring drives came after stops only to see “questionable” calls extend them.)

They needed this game to figure out what they have on defense. Against tougher competition, I'm not sure.

First team defense was impressive.  Eleby is a good qb.  Surprised he played whole game with the whole season ahead.  Good pass rush. Pretty good coverage in secondary. 

All of last year I noticed how, especially on defense, the players looked lost and disinterested. Reminded me a lot of the 2014 team.

Today, players were flying to the ball with ferocity, players were in good position, making really good tackles.

I was very impressed by what I saw today.

Biggest improvements are between week one and week two. I think they’re on the right track.

never get too high on things….never get too low. 
 

I am encouraged. WMU has a good offense and they only scored 14. I’ll take that.

Hutchinson and Hill are 1st rd talents, no surprise.

NHG missed one tackle, but his other tackles were with a purpose. I really liked seeing that.

Ross seems like a good kid, I just don’t think he’s a great football player.

Offense is going to have to be good because there’s simply not the defensive talent that 16-18 at all 3 levels.

The defense exceeded my expectations. Garbage TD given up after the WMU kicker went down. Dax Hill was great. Aidan Hutchinson had a stellar game. It was 60 minutes of good effort and execution after a shaky first go around giving up a WMU TD.

Overall, a B to B+. A good start as WMU will have a good season in the MAC.

I'm not feeling good about the defense. I think good teams will just gash runs up the middle or sit back and pick apart the soft coverage. I don't think they'll give up a lot of big plays, but they won't make very many either.

A little bit of a bend but don't break feel. Given the deficiencies, that's probably the right approach. DTs still looked pretty suspect and secondary was only able to hold down yards after uncontested catches on too many plays. This isn't gonna be an elite or probably even good unit this year, but hopefully won't give up big plays and keep us in it if the offense is improved. 

Western has a lot of starts on that offensive line. They had a 6th year player I think. We were soft up the gut at times but overall not too bad. Maybe a little too soft on the psd coverage and too much cushion. I’m not sure if that isn’t to make them drive the field though and not give up the home run. 

Hutch will be a first round pick this year, and I like him more than any other Harbaugh era DE. That kid is so good. Enjoy him while we can.

Watched the interior all game long and honestly was not impressed. Wasn't really expecting any pressure, but at least pocket pushing and controlling the LOS against WMU. To my eye that was largely a stalemate. Not good enough against an inferior opponent. But I loved the death squirrel approach so what do I know.

Linebackers didn't pop much to me. I miss watching Bush and to a lesser extent McGrone. Ross was solid.

Corners TBD. But Dax is special, really reminds me of Byron Jones. Hope Hawkins keeps being boring.

Make those interceptions! 

For a first game with a new DC and an entirely new scheme it was better than I expected.

It could have been ugly.

Generally acquitted themselves well. Lots to work on but most of the issues were self-inflicted.
And they made nice adjustments for the most part after the first possessions.

Good start.

Washington’s run game and that massive OL will be the real test.

Not bad for the first time out. Good tackling. We'll know a lot more after next week's game  

Looked really shaky at first but they clamped down on a good QB. Solid start for McDonald. 

Only gets harder from here, but the first signs were encouraging. And gotta love that Aidan came back. He was an absolute difference-maker today, and is a bona fide first round talent.

If we can see week to week progression that’s all that matters this year. I’m not expecting McDonald to work miracles. He’s working with what he has, but if they keep getting better on a week to week basis, that’s what matters most.  

Very worried about the run D