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Just a little get-to-know-ya piece on our new DC. http://www.twincities.com/vikings/ci_21 ... source=rss

dead_poet wrote:Just a little get-to-know-ya piece on our new DC. http://www.twincities.com/vikings/ci_21 ... source=rss

Nice Article. Thanks for posting the link...

Yes, nice article. Thanks for the link.

Interesting how Williams expects players to play their best at their level but does understand there are different levels on the team.

I hope that means he's able to clearly assess what kind of players he has and what they can realistically do.

So much of solid defense is having smart and aware football players who maintain their gaps and do what they're supposed to do when they're supposed to do it. There are a couple of prima donna positions on defense, but for the most part a team can perform well on defense even without the "star" players.

Problems crop up when you have players who can't read the situation correctly, who guess, who over-commit, or who lack solid tackling and cover techniques (ala Larry Dean bouncing off a Titan runner instead of wrapping the guy up and bringing him down).

If Williams can really get this group playing the fundamentals and believing in the approach, that would be great. I don't know if the Vikes would be a top-10 defense in that case, but they'd be a heck of a lot better than what we've seen the last two years, and we might have more to look forward to when the defense is on the field than just watching the Jared Allen sack-o-meter go up. This will be especially evident in the defensive secondary when it comes to pass breakups and picks. The Viking secondary overall has just stunk the last two seasons, mostly because the players don't play fundamentally sound and lack the ability to read and react. If Williams can turn that around to the point where the secondary as a group is getting their hands on balls and maybe even picking a couple, he'll have a believer in me. There is no excuse for a team that gets to the QB as much as the Vikings do having such a high completion percentage against them. Normally pressure on the QB translates to lower completion percentages in all situations, but getting there requires defensive backs that can read, anticipate, and react.