Ok, for four straight weeks, we have seen a complete atrocity at Free Safety play. Literally every single weekend, we give up 2+ big plays, and it can be directly correlated to Reshad Jones or Yeremiah Bell. This week I am not going to blame Jones for the TD Jackson caught on coverage, but more complete laziness in tackling. He also took horrible angles on the screen pass and various other plays he was blown past. I am getting tired of this. Reshad cannot cover up ground at all, has zero range, and is over aggressive. We all see this. Yes, Bell is a step slow, but if you get a FS in there with range, you can take away some of the deficiencies this defense has. A FS with range allows him to cover ground and the QB is aware of this in their film study prep. With a player like Jones, he literally bites on everything and has zero range on top of that.. Enter Chris Clemons. He is not phenomenal or a great player by any means, but he is a stabilizer and does what he needs to do. Where the FUCK is he? We all see him on every special teams play, then standing on the sideline by himself on the base defense series. EVERY SINGLE SPECIAL TEAMS PLAY, he is out there, but not replacing Jones? What the heck is going on? Its either a behavioral issue where he is benched until the bye week, or his hamstring injury. Which would make no sense because he is flying down the field every special teams play. I really am baffled and cannot understand this at all.
excellent question. Is Jones outplaying Clemons in practice, or is Clemons even getting an opportunity in practice?
Agreed. I don't understand how the guy is good enough to play on special teams, but not good enough to play safety, even as atrocious as Reshad Jones as been. It's unbelievable really. It's quite obvious to EVERYONE that Jones is either not ready, or just not good enough to play in this league at safety. Something strange has to be going on here, no doubt. It just doesn't make sense. I'm with you on this one.
I suspect this is one of the huge problems on Defense, both because Reshad "lost" Jones is a bad player, but because the rest of the Defense knows he is a bad player, that causes a cascade effect, the players no longer can trust the FS to do his job, and they do not believe the coaches are putting the best player on the field, they are playng favorites. Add in Carroll starting at Cb, and the defense is limited in what coverages they can use, and who they can use it on, and when they can blitz and who they can disguise their blitzes.
Reminiscent of when Henne was anointed the starter over Pennington in 2010. Can't say for sure Jones is the reason but our DBs aren't playing aggressively, not much squatting or jumping routes. We all saw the TD to Johnson. Cribbs was five yards behind the D for a TD in the Cleveland game also. And he's not even fast.
Clemons has never been remotely close to as bad as Jones has been, even when he was playing injured last year.
I've wanted to see Jones moved to SS and clemons at FS, yea they would be really young but at the same time I think they would complement eachother out there.
but he was just sort of 'there' when he played. he is not bad when Bell is playing well. i dont see him as a long term starter unless the pieces around him are very solid. im not sure what tony's thing with jones is. he has to be an amazing practice player
lol. it speaks to how bad jones is. CC should be playing for sure, but im just saying that we shouldn't forget that he was pretty unremarkable and a lot people wanted to see jones get his shot
I keep trying to find out the answer myself, if they are basing it on performance and who the better player is, they have obviously indicted themselves in their evaluation....I asked in another thread, why can't one of our stupid beat reporters ask the damn question...Sparano?? did Rehad Joned beat out Clemons for this job?? This decision really pisses me off considering how I thought Clemons was playing in this defense..If its not behavior related, someone is a real poor evaluator.
I think Clemons fell behind due to a hamstring injury and it perhaps isn't quite 100% so, right or wrong, Tony has decided to limit his snaps. Our safeties have been worse than our RG/RT combo. Our ILB combo has been bad too, but it is more magnified when it is the last line of defense. IMO, Jones fvckups caused Sapp to get cut as much as any single thing Sapp himself did.
Not to be Captain Hindsight, but FS needed to be addressed in FA and there were some decent options out there. Ireland screwed the pooch on that one...but then again maybe he was planning to suck for Luck.
I wouldn't be all that surprised if Ireland stayed. I wouldn't worry too much though. Luck has mobility, Ireland will pick him and save his *** for years to come.
luckily i've been gone and haven't seen a game yet this year .... regardless, several of us said over and over that Jones was at best a SS - and wasn't suited for FS. Many here disagreed. It would be interesting to hear why CC isn't on the field. conversely, i was pretty high on Carroll at CB - and all signs point to that being just a tad off ...
Jones must have shared these photos with Carroll, because that is the only reason to see that Carroll is still on this roster.
Well, don't spread it around, but I heard he called Jeff Ireland's mother a whore !! Seriously, I agree here. First reports were that he was dinged up. But as time has gone on, I don't know. Jones is a disaster at the FS spot. I almost would like to see Jones a SS and Clemons at FS...Bell has lost a step and is just not at the right place at the right time any longer. Couple this with the poor corner play we've seen and the secondary is a first class clusterfudge... So what is the story ?? Has he lost his job because of performance or is it something more than that ?? I can't really see any improvement in Jones play since the preseason. There has to be more to it...
Maybe he wasn't Ed Reed, but he didn't make blaring mistakes, took good angles and generally avoided attention. Where we are now, I'd rather had the FS make the tackle after a catch and limit the YACs than miss wildly and be chasing folks down all day...
