As we all know, the 2012 defense was little more than a clusterfizzle. As I see it, we had two major problems: (1) inadequate team speed, especially in the back 7; and (2) Sal / new system. Now that we're switching back to a 4-3-- the alignment most of the roster was recruited for-- I think we should pay very little attention to what the defense did last year, and try to make some judgments by comparing to the 2011 defense instead.
For starters, that defense had Justin Wilcox at the helm. To be conservative, I'm going to assume that Wilcox > Jancek. That may not be the case, but Wilcox did do a nice job with a defense that was young and lacking in speed and talent and it was the second year in his system. That should give his defense some edge over the 2013 defense.
The 2011 defense gave up 22.6 PPG (36th) and 340.5 YPG (28th). Can this defense improve enough over 2012 to get back into that range-- say, top 50 in points and yards allowed (recall in 2012 we were worse than 100th in both)?
Below is a quick comparison of the 2011 starters to a 2013 projection of the starters. Any position highlighted in green I consider to be superior to the other year; red is inferior and yellow is more or less neutral.
Note that two of these positions (LE, SLB) are marked as superior in 2013 simply because they have the same players with two more years of experience, and two more (RE, MLB) are marked superior because a starter or part-time starter from 2011 now occupies that role (RE, MLB). I think the only one of these four that can even be debated is A.J. Johnson over Austin Johnson at MLB since A.J. was at WLB in 2011, but I doubt anyone will challenge me on that judgement.
So that's 4 of 12 positions where the personnel is an improvement more or less by default. I've also penciled in the following:
* Dan McCullers as an improvement over Daniel Hood and Mo Couch at NT; size alone made that an easy call and McCullers is on a number of preseason watchlists.
* Byron Moore as an improvement over Brent Brewer and Brian Randolph at strong safety; choosing him over Brewer is easy for speed alone, and the experience difference between Moore and a freshman in 2011, Randolph, gives him the edge there too.
* Riyadh Jones and Justin Coleman as pushes with the 2011 platoon of Lanier, Coleman, Teague, and Randolph. We don't yet know what Jones is bringing but Teague really struggled, Randolph was a freshman, and Coleman is back with more experience. The only question is whether Lanier should be green over Coleman, IMO.
* Brian Randolph as a push with the combo of P-Wagg and Randolph; Waggner was a bright spot but I think Randolph is going to be a really solid safety and would have helped us tremendously last year if he hadn't been hurt.
* Dontavis Sapp as a push with A.J. Johnson at WLB; Sapp is better suited to that position and I think A.J. was a step too slow in addition to being a freshman.
* Mo Couch and Daniel Hood as a step down from Malik Jackson. Malik was a damn good playmaker despite being undersized in there.
* LaDarrell McNeil and Lemond Johnson (or really, whoever takes this nickel spot) as a step down from the duo of Byron Moore and Brian Randolph at nickel. We have a guy who was very inconsistent as a freshman last year and an unknown as a freshman this year vs. Moore and Randolph, who were talented enough to start some at safety and corner spots that year.
Final count: better at 6 positions, worse at 2, neutral at 4.
Overall I think this defense has more strength up front and possibly more speed in the back. Exactly how that plays with the new DC and recovering from last year's debacle, I do not know. But I think it boils down to this: if you are short on speed, the only way to be decent is to be in the right spot most of the time (we were in 2011). If you are short on speed and so confused that you don't even know where to be, you have the makings of a historically bad defense (2012). I believe we're still short on speed in 2013, but as long as we now have a staff that will have guys in the right spots, we should not see the kind of debacle we saw last year.
So I think we are a top 50 defense this year . . . which is not where we want to be, but would have been adequate to win 8 games a year ago. This year I think it's enough to win 6, as long as the offense isn't historically bad.
Thoughts?