11-22-2019, 04:15 PM
Quote: @"Tyr" said:I agree with this. Rhodes in particular has been victimized by a combination of just getting beat, which is bad enough, but also losing the game of inches. I would say half the time his man catches the ball, Rhodes has near perfect position and the receiver just comes down with it.
One of the weird trends this year is how often we'll have a corner in seemingly the right position, but they just don't make the play. If it was just Rhodes, I could chalk it up to him struggling, but Waynes, Hughes, and to a lesser extent Alexander have been guilty as well. Sometimes plays are 50/50 and the wrong side wins, but it seems like compared to recent years, our corners are losing contested balls more than they used to. I'm not sure what's causing it, but it's hurt our blitz packages too. Before we could line up in a double A gap look, play man on the receivers and have a reasonable chance of breaking up the play, but against Denver, our corners were being picked apart in those matchups. Some of it is one the pass rush too, particularly a lack of interior pass rush, which forces the corners to cover longer, but int he double A gap look, it was just down to our corners getting beat quickly. I hope there's a coaching/scheme fix for this, otherwise their investment of 3 1st rounders and a 2nd rounder on corners is looking pretty bad right now and sadly, we'll likely end up spending another high pick on a corner because of cap considerations.
As for Elflein, he seemed like the right pick at the time. Had a good rookie season and then never got on track after being hurt. He seemed like he should have been a safe pick, but it's been frustrating.
That's going to happen to even the best corners in the NFL if they're targeted enough. But, like Rhodes two years ago, they just aren't. Rhodes has to start coming down with a few of those himself if he wants to stop being a target. A pick or two could turn things around for him.