[SirClintonPortis]

Originally Posted by The Goat

Shanahan inherited a better defense than Harbaugh did period end of sentence. What he chose to do w/ it is the real story.

I'm going from a personnel perspective, not "stats", . Their secondary was complete ass, but yet they were absolutely dominant against the run in 2009 and 2010. The latter signifies that their front 7 was well off enough to pull that off. What put the 49ers over the top is the marked improvement in their pass defense, which the additions of Rogers and Aldon Smith bolstered.

Our front 7 was reaching the point where it would soon be worthy of the label "unacceptable", with Rak and Fletch being the only exceptions. Our secondary was decent and better than the 49ers, but that's not saying much.

Had Shanahan decided to keep the 4-3, not only did he need to find a suitable coordinator(easier said than done), but he would have had to replenish the Dline* and fill the absolutely GAPING void that was at SOLB.

The reason our yardage total was so low was that Greg Blache is the ****ing Jacques Martin of defense. An excessively conservative scheme that can limit yards even with mediocre personnel because it is designed to give up long, time-consuming drives to limit points.


*Griff was injury vulnerable, Haynesworth was a lazy flake even under Blache, and weak sauce Kedric Golston was our "depth". Phillip Daniels, while effective, retired 2 years later. Andre Carter, while good, was certainly getting up their in age as well.