The young guy who will be starting at free safety is Paris Ford. He will be learning the position as part of on the job training. Whitehead will be back at strong safety and lead the team in tackles. I have been saying for a while that the secondary will not be a weakness this year. If we can find a pass rushing end or two, none of you will even recognize this defense, when compared to last year's performance
You could very well be right . Strange things like injuries happen sometimes, however, as was the case with Hamlin last year.
We have more better athletes and better depth overall. That said, Whitehead and Ford will be our best athletes and overall the defense will be younger. Therefore, I do agree with you, we must stay in good health, especially our two safeties who are major difference makers.
Exactly why I thought whitehead should've been the free safety last year. I'm not at practice, maybe whitehead personally is just better at strong safety and Webb the others were even worse at strong safety. But the free safety position killed us and I too thought at the very least whitehead could not have been any worse in coverage than the guys we saw last year.
That was true of Whitehead in 2015, not last year. Whitehead was asked to cover more last year and was not nearly as involved in the run stopping. He struggled with it, by appearances it was not related to ability, but was more about knowing his responsibilities, the switches, communicating switches to the other DBs, etc.--the mental part of the job. That is not to say he can't and won't learn the position, but he had a tough time with coverage last year.
Alot of what you say is true, as far as what was expected of him last year. However, he realized that he was the only guy in that secondary to have real ability to make plays. The others could understand their assignments but did not have the ability to make plays( in other words, they would cover the right guy, but coulldn't stop said guy from making the catch).
Whitehead was great his FR year. Last year he struggled mightily trying to take on a bigger role. The tackles were there because the rest of the unit stunk and that is his strength. We need other folks to step up, but Whitehead really needs to improve his knowledge and basics against the pass for the defense to really improve.
Brightwell is a little light in the shorts for MLB imo....unless he bulked up in the offseason. I like the athleticism, doubt that position will be the best fit for him. We'll see...
Can we convert one or two of these guys to CB this year. We were so weak at that spot I was going to send my wife out to play the position. She's small but she's slow so she would have fit in with the rest of the PITT corners. But she tackles better than they did!
Remember that Narduzzi singled Whitehead out a couple of times in post game pressers during the season for failing to communicate in coverage. He clearly had his struggles.
