The first reason is Pat Williams. It pains me to say this ,but he isn't getting that push that he used to get up the middle. Teams were converting 3rd and 1 on us more often this year because Pat just can't man handle his guy at the line of scrimmage. I'm not convinced though that he can't do that completely anymore. Leslie Frazier needs to do a better job of subbing for him this year. We've got a lot of depth at Defensive Line which we learned from last year's preseason so lets use it. We need to give some more rest to Pat so we can bring him in on those 3rd and 1's and goal line stands which will allow him to produce like he used to.

The second reason is Jared Allen. I did not notice how bad his run stop skills were until my soon to be father-in-law pointed it out to me. From the day you start playing DE to the day you stop, what are the coaches always preaching? Don't let the running back get to the outside. How do you accomplish this? By not letting your man push you inside. So many times Jared would try his spin move to the inside and it would end up being a run and then we would get burned to the outside. He needs to get better at recognizing the run. He is still one of the best pass rushers in the league ,but he's allowing that to hurt his run stopping abilities which in turn is hurting the whole team. He is getting to greedy and trying to sack the QB every time. He needs to work on recognizing the run better. I'm really hoping with Leslie Frazier as the Head Coach and the new addition of Mike Singletary, Jared will learn to do this and become a complete DE that you can't run or pass against. Even when the Secondary was bad you could always rely on the rush defense in the past, not allowing anything on the ground and then in 09' we developed a pass-rush defense. If our rush defense does not get back to the level it was at two years ago and our secondary doesn't get any better, we are going to drop into being a mediocre defense in the near future.