In fairness to Cason on the play, if you re-watch the replay, Bigby and Weddle were both playing deep. Bigby was supposed to be covering deep on Cason's side, but he followed the TE across the middle, as the dragged over to Weddle's side of the field. As much as the announcers wanted to blame Cason, I think Bigby screwed the pooch on that one. I think Cason was right to expect Bigby would be helping him out over the top.
big time need for cornerbacks and what's disgraceful is that I can't even see Gilchrist/Wright really helping this team in the future. So if anything this position needs a total tear down
It's been a need even before this game. Even if Wright does continue progressing as he's shown, Cason hasn't earned a contract extension (he'll, sadly, probably still get a Clary-esque one), Jammer's got maybe 2 more years at boundary corner in him if he's lucky, and Gilchrist isn't a boundary guy. It's also a given that AJ will look to address this before OL because AJ never spends early picks on OL. Fortunately, there is a really good crop of CB's set for the 2013 draft class - God willing we just steer clear of the guy who has "have to be a safety at the next level or I'll bust" written all over him in David Amerson.
I want to to see one of the top 3 LTs come to SD however it becomes nesecsary in next years draft. Guess I should start paying attention to player rankings early. 2nd round top CB that fits the need after the LT.
I'm really suspicious of Gaither, but if he's going to be good for a few years I'd go CB now. It's atrocious that since 2002 we've drafted 6 CBs in the 1st or 2nd round and likely won't have a single starting caliber CB on the roster among them next season.
I've been beating this drum since before the 2012 draft. CB is a gigantic problem, and both Cason and Jammer are UFA's at the end of the year....and thank goodness because I can't take another year of them. Even when we got pressure today they were getting slaughtered by the renowned Matt Cassel.
Games are won and lost on the line of scrimage. Thats why we need to continue to shore up everything thing else.
Only problem with that is that unless you buy old (like we did with Spikes), CB's are one of the positions that come at a premium on the FA market as quality ones rarely actually are let go by the teams that lay hands on them. And just looking at the market it's pretty dearthy to begin with (washed up Marcus Trufant, Brent Grimes coming off of an Achilles tear and expecting top dollar, Mike Jenkins' underachieving behind). I'd honestly sooner just bring back Jammer on a team friendly (doesn't necessarily mean ultra-cheap, just easy to get out from under if/when play further declines) contract. The sad part is... Cason's probably gonna get massively overpaid by some other team.
It hurts when you miss on 1st round picks like AJ has...... we have to keep addressing the same positions.
True dat. Only way to fix our problem will be to do it in the draft, and WAIT and PRAY that the player(s) pan out. I think our only hope for this year is that Wright comes back and plays like he did in the pre-season, and that Pagano has the cajones to actually give him the starting job.
I honestly think our CB's look worse then they really are because of what their being asked to do... not trying to say there great or anything but we dnt play a lot of man up 2 deep safety kinda defense... to me it looks like pagano likes to be aggressive with the front 7 and conservative with the dbs playing the bend but dont break kinda defense.. Cason also consistently plays like 8 or 9 yards off the line of scrimmage which is further evidence to me that pagano would rather protect against the 40 yard pass then stop the 8 yard one
I heard that Chris Carr is headed the Charger's way and could play against the Saints. chris carr@triplcarr San Diego bound !
I think Shareece Wright will surprise people. I think he is a solid corner with great man up skills. Not sure how well his play style fits in our zone type defense though. I think he could start over Cason right now and instantly make us better. But I also think Scifres could play CB better than Cason is right now and he is the punter. Gilly seems to be a Nickle back. Doesnt seem like his skills lend themselves to a boundary cb. Think we need to look into the draft or free agency next year. Shareece may be able to fill one of those spots, but we are going to need 2 within 2 years.
I honestly think Wright's a better fit in zone coverage than Cason is. Cason's instincts are trash, so playing him with a 7-8 yard cushion doesn't play to his strengths (what few he has). The problem is that he has no recovery speed to pair with those poor instincts, so if he isn't able to jam his man at the line and gets beaten by a fake or a double-move (this happens quite a bit even with his cushion) he's playing catch-up and thus if you play him up close you're practically forced to shade a safety over top of him every play (which severely limits our options). Wright's also a surer tackler. Assuming the underclassmen expected to declare do, there's some depth to this upcoming CB class in a numbero f different areas (i.e. guys with great ceilings but in need of more polish/seasoning, guys with great floors but lacking elite ceilings, guys who won't be "playmakers" but will make careers off of being "non-liabilities"). There's a number of guys getting seriously overlooked by most of the "draft guru's" right now because they aren't putting up sexy INT numbers (horrible stat to place the meat of your judgement on a DB on) or are simply not "standing out on tape" (for a DB that's actually a pretty good thing, means his receiver isn't producing much worth mentioning against him). Take Terry Hawthorne from Illinois - second cleanest technique and some of the best footwork for a DB in this class with quality hands (former WR) and good speed, who easily has early Day Two stock right now and wouldn't be a bad pickup at the bottom of the first if you're looking for a more immediate player as opposed to someone who will be groomed to be "shutdown". Comparison-wise, there are a lot of parallels between him and Charles Tillman.
I agree with you on Cason. He is much better press man then zone, but thats not saying a whole lot. Wright is more athletic than Cason so he will be able to recover better than Cason in a zone, but still think his skills would make him a good press man type guy. I think as soon as Shareece gets healthy he needs to get his shot at corner. I seriously think he would be an instant upgrade. He may give up more catches right off the bat, but I bet he gives up less scores from the start too.
Put me on that bandwagon hoping for Shareece Wright to come back and beat out Cason. Cason might get paid by somebody next year just like someone did for DFlo, their loss, not ours. I had great hopes for him, really surprised he has not come on the way he should have. This is Jammer's last year as a corner I reckon, it means we could/should have 2 new starters come Sept 13. And right now we're looking at Wright, Gilchrist and (now) Carr in that order. Maybe Gatson comes on but I doubt it. As for O line Troutman could beat out Vasquez so right now signing 65 for me is not a biggie. Harris should be our starting RT in 13. If Gaither stays healthy our O line might look like this; Big Lazy, Green, Hardwick/Molk, Troutman and Harris. (not allowing for what we do in the draft of course)
In the words of deion, " safety i dont need a safety thats the REASON IM THERE" regardless cason should have been there to protect the td, he got burnt because he expected help, instead of being a competitor,
Not even so much that as, the play call - even when running zone, is never quite so that Cason's zone was limited to strictly the 8 yards in front of him. In zone coverage you're, at least the way I was always taught, still responsible for the assignment passing through your zone until you "pass him off" to a teammate. Cason was more than a step late looking for the safety-help to pass Bowe off to because he was caught peeking in the backfield. The guy just doesn't grasp the concept of zone coverage, it seems, outside of a "well if the guy's not in my zone he's not my responsibility" attitude. I don't think he quite gets WHY zone coverage can be effective if executed properly or WHAT proper execution is for that matter. He seems to have this very laissez-faire "not my zone, not my problem" philosophy. And I'm referring to a body of plays over this season and dating back to when Rivera was calling zone-coverage for us, not just this one play.
If this were an isolated instance, I'd say he knew he was supposed to have help over the top. It isn't, which leads me to believe that you're right about not understanding assignments. Either that or he's just lazy & unaccountable.
On a short field there is no such thing as a "Deep Zone" and not knowing where the safeties rolled to on the play it would be very difficult to diagnose at best. I don't have any replays but what it looked like to me was that Cason bit on something inside and that one step cost him big time.
I just wanted to bump this thread, because Brees made this painfully obvious. The biggest weakness on this roster is at the CB position. We literally have nobody on the roster who can cover an NFL starting wideout, let alone a true number 1.
