re: Mike Nolan Talks Up Stephone Anthony

I remember posting that Anthony was being wasted away on the bench and got bashed for it (may have been another site). SA should have been playing and learning all season. They chose to impede his progression instead.

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If PJ Williams contributed anything positive, it must have been when I was napping.

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did pretty well in his limited 1.5 games of action.
nice coverage and wasn't the weak link on the secondary.

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Now that Vitt is finally gone maybe we can get a little out of Anthony

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His rookie season was really good, so the team has already gotten "a little" out of him. If he plays a full season and improves only a little, I think most fans would be happy.

I wouldn't say he had a really good year, but for a rookie to come in and start every game and call the plays he did a damn fine job.

He was better than Lofton, that's for sure. Had we not signed Robertson he would have been the starter.

I'm glad we have Nolan. He has coordinator and head coaching experience and he will tell Payton what he thinks of the players, unlike the buddy system that was in place where they all just went together on things.

The one thing I can say I was disappointed about was not firing the last crony standing.

Payton does stick his hand in the defense from time to time. In 2013 he let Rob do his thing and we were the 4th best defense.

In 2014 Payton got obsessed with wanting Seattle's defense and drafted SJB, brought in Byrd to be Earl Thomas, and told Ryan this is what we are running.

Of course it flopped and the next year Payton brought back his buddy to "watch over" Ryan, and brought in Browner to keep pushing that Seattle defense. And despite Allen being the one calling coverages Ryan took the fall (I mean just look at how they kept trotting Browner out week after week after Ryan was fired, and Allen putting Browner one on one with guys like Ginn).

This is the one thing that gives me great pause about a defensive improvement, but we have a lot of talent there and better assistants. And hopefully Nolan is DC in waiting if Allen continues to be shite.

Anthony is a talent and will be utilized elsewhere if we let him go.

Rob Ryan

I would have to look it up, but Payton himself said something about emulating Seattle's defense, and then you can read everything Rob said about the situation.

Ryan had the defense rolling and Payton stuck his nose in it because he thought if we could emulate the Seahawks we'd get back to the big game.

Hell they still tried to run a version of that defense last year with Byrd 20 yards off trying to play the Thomas role.

Corner issues aside, we didn't have the speed and cover ability at LB that Seattle had to try and run that scheme. That's why we're one of the worst in the league from 2014-2016 in giving up receiving yardage to backs.

Edit:
Added the Ryan link. And if you don't believe what he says then I don't know what to say.

Watch 2013 and then watch 2014. We changed just about everything we did on defense because Payton just had to copy Seattle.