SANTA CLARA – Carlos Rogers spoke in the media tent Wednesday afternoon. Here’s what he said about the 49ers defense.
Q: You guys are ranked No.2 against the pass right now. How have the defensive backs stepped up this season?
ROGERS: It’s our second year in the system. Guys are stepping up and taking on the challenges. Our defensive line and linebackers do a good job stopping the run, so the next option for teams is to throw the ball. If we step our game up and eliminate their catches and their long passes, it’s going to help the defense out.
Q: Why is the defense causing as many turnovers as it did last season?
ROGERS: Sometimes we’ve been in position, sometimes the quarterback does a good job of holding onto the ball or throwing the ball away. We don’t have as many turnovers as we had last year, but we’re better in a lot more categories. You asked about our pass defense – we’re giving up 184 yards a game. Last year, we weren’t near that. Turnovers are great, but if you’re getting off the field with a lot of three-and-outs, you give your offense a lot of possessions. That’s good too.
Q: Is it working to your advantage that teams are focusing on not turning the ball over? Are they being more cautious?
ROGERS: Turnovers are about defenses being in the right position to get the interception. Some guys jump a route. Some guys punch the ball out of ball carriers’ hands. A lot of ways to get turnovers, you just have to make a conscious effort to keep working for them. We’re trying, but we aren’t going to go out of our way to say, “I’m going to jump this route because we don’t have the turnovers we had last year.” We play defense. If it’s third and four and they gain three yards, we’ll take that.
Q: Do you feel like Dashon Goldson is playing better than he was last year?
ROGERS: I think so. He can be 15, 16 yards deep and the opposing coaches might think he’s in Cover 2, next thing you know, a run comes and he stops the run for a three or four-yard gain from back there. I think he does a good job of disguising. He’s studying a lot more. He knows what opposing offenses are trying to do. He’s going to make a lot more plays.
Q: Did you know much about him before you came here?
ROGERS: I didn’t know much. There were a few guys I heard about when I was out there on the East Coast. They’re weren’t playing so well as a team, so they weren’t getting a lot of media attention besides Patrick Willis, basically. Being a DB, I followed Dashon, but he just picked his game up to a whole other level. We were just talking the other day that we have to pick our game up to another level. It’s the second half of the season. We want to put our offense in a good position to make the playoffs.
Q: You guys are the No.3 seed right now. Have you guys talked about getting the No.1 or No.2 seed?
ROGERS: We haven’t talked about it. We’ve talked about putting our self in a good position against the division teams. Where we fall in the playoffs, we fall. It doesn’t matter.
49ers RSS feed
Loading ...
I like his attitude.
Turnovers are sexy but its much better to rely on getting 3 & outs than having to rely on turnovers. So I’d say its an improvement.
I think the defense is as good as last year but you’d still like to see more sacks and turnovers. I have a feeling the 9ers defense will be turning up the heat in the 2nd half. The bye week couldn’t have come at a better time. This is a championship caliber defense for sure.
I’m with you Houston,
Sacks are HUGE and I believe the 49ers Front 7 is primed to get alot more in the 2nd half of the Season. Like….say Sunday?
The reason they haven’t had as many sacks and turnovers so far this year is likely that they have had fewer attempts (defensive snaps). I couldn’t find 3&out stats, but this year the defense leading the league in lowest 3rd down conversion percentage, is allowing almost 1 fewer 1st down per game, and so far about 40 fewer total yards per game. They lead the league in lowest yards per play allowed, and they are second lowest in plays played. -all stats from nfl.com
Those are great stats. If a defense can get off the field on 3rd downs then they’ve won the battle. I think you still want a little more production in terms of sacks and int’s to create short fields for the offense. The 9ers have given up 24 sacks on offense but they only have 15 on defense. In the first half, we played 4 teams who really struggle in the passing game – Jets, Seahawks, Cards, and Bills. To be sure, the 9ers have played well against those teams. However, we struggled in a couple of games with better QB play. The 49ers will need to get a bit more pressure on the QB over the 2nd half and into the playoffs.
Something to ponder, OTHER than the Ad Nauseum Alex Debate:
http://www.thepostgame.com/blog/men-action/201211/how-oregon-coach-chip-kelly-can-spark-moneyball-revolution-nfl
Interesting argument, if you get past the Duck fangasm. Personally, I’d like to see someone try it out. I trust math more than I trust conventional wisdom.
Interesting article. The writer seems to create the impression that Chip Kelly invented the idea of going for it on almost all 4th downs and that somehow this Zeus program validates Kelly’s strategy. The math behind going for it on 4th down has been around for a very long time. Kelly is really the most high profile coach willing to take the chance. He certainly didn’t invent the strategy. I would say having a team with the speed of Oregon allows the tactic to be successful. That strategy would never in a million years work in the NFL and would very quickly get a coach fired. With NFL kickers, you’d be giving the other team 3 points on every 4th down that you didn’t make. NFL games are too tight to make that strategy successful. At any rate, here’s an article about a High School coach who has been using this strategy for years…
http://highschool.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=892888
@ Grumpy Guy:
Thanks for the link. That’s a must read article. I too am waiting to see what happens when an NFL coach becomes consistently aggressive on 4th down.
I also don’t think it is a coincidence that Bill Belichick does so more often than other coaches. The man is smart.
The New England Patriots are tied for 28th in the league with only 3 4th down attempts all year.
Arizona on the other hand leads the league in 4th down attempts with 15. I’m guessing Belichick may have learned to be a bit more conservative after not making a few of those crucial fourth down tries.
@ Houston:
Sorry, I wrote that inartfully. I should have written “Belichick is less afraid to do so.”
I think Belichick is smart enough to recognize that failing to convert 100% of his 4th down attempts doesn’t disprove the math.
The biggest problem I have with the mathematical models regarding 4th down attempts is that they don’t appear to adjust for the relative effectiveness of the offenses and defenses playing in the game in question. The calculation for New England facing Buffalo should be different from the calculation for Arizona facing SF. I know the article says that Zeus’s “incorporates the teams’ characteristics,” but I don’t know exactly what that means, and whenever I read FO’s criticism of a coach’s decision not to go for it on 4th and short, they only refer to league wide percentages.
Well Claude I was only going off what you wrote which was, “Bill Belichick does so more often than other coaches. The man is smart.” Belichick doesn’t go for it on 4th down more than other coaches. This year he’s 28th in the league. Last year he was around 20th in the league. The year before that he was around 17th in the league. If you look at those numbers, a reasonable person might conclude that Bill Belichick is more afraid to go for it than at least half the other coaches in the league.
As far as the math, what they supposedly proved was that going for it on every 4th down regardless of the opponent is mathematically a better move than punting. They also supposedly proved that using an onside kick on every kickoff is mathematically the smarter move. I do think there is logic to this argument in High School and possibly in college as Chip Kelly is sort of proving. I do not believe this tactic is viable as an NFL strategy. Mike Martz used to go for it quite a bit on 4th down and he was eventually run out of St Louis on a rail because people thought he was crazy.
Thanks Grump. Doesn’t Kelly to Carolina seem like a natural fit?
I think the Panthers are going to give Rivera another year to right the ship. I was thinking Kelly might be a better fit with the Chargers. I’m not sure if he can co-exist with AJ Smith but it might be a better fit than the Panthers. I don’t really think Kelly will end up in the NFL next year. It’s possible but I just don’t see it yet – unless he wins the national championship. Then all bets are off.