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lol the difference between Minshew and Rush is very, very, very small. If you look at the statistical output historically between the two, its practically negligible.

High end backup is code for "was once considered a potential franchise starter but never lived up to it".

Nah everybody in here, unanimously, would rather have Minshew. Dude has played well in different scenarios, good teams and bad. He's always good for a month which is what high end backups do. Rush's rep is based on on season he filled in on a pretty loaded Dallas team where he had been in the system for several years already. He's been fringe ever since.

The potential franchise thing isn't true at all. Undrafted types/late picks who understand they are going to be backups from day 1 tend to carve out those careers for longer periods of time. Guys like Bridgewater waste half their careers trying to be starters before settling into top tier backup status.
 
There's always anywhere between 3-6 or so high end backups at any given time. Your Fitzpatricks, Brissets and Case Keenums of the world. I think Gardner Minshew & Dalton indisputably are there right now.

the issue with "high-end backups" is that unfortunately a lot of them are forced into starting roles by virtue of there not being 32 decent starters at the position in the league

and by bumping up some of those potential "high-end backups" into starters, the pool of backups gets worse too
 
Zone isn't a bad thing in theory. In fact, I understand why we transitioned there heavily over the last few years. It's greatly helped with disguise and the ability to scheme pressure and create turnovers (except in the playoffs apparently). This year's zone philosophy just has all of the makings of trying to be too cute on the coverage side of things and not cute enough on the pressure side of things. Blitzes are telegraphed but the coverage side of things make no sense at times.

Zone concepts are great when they work, but this is just a team that needs to play man right now and let players win or lose individual battles.

as a general rule, no good defence is just one thing... and that has been the case for at least a decade

the last defensive team that played one way and built everything out of one particular coverage and narrow system was the seahawks and the legion of boom and that cover 3
 
Ravens have been a mixture of zone and man defense for some time. Other coordinators like Wink Martindale have tend to use man coverage more. I don't really understand why the defense is struggling so much in zone coverage cause it's not like Mike MacDonald didn't use it but maybe he was more balanced with it than Zach Orr is or his zone coverages just wasn't as complexed . Even Chuck Pagano defense is known to use zone coverages alot and John Harbaugh himself comes from a zone heavy defensive philosophy under Jim Johnson .
I have no problem with zone and id prefer it but it hasnt worked well ever since mike left. Tbh, man could possibly be worse lol
 
Ravens have been a mixture of zone and man defense for some time. Other coordinators like Wink Martindale have tend to use man coverage more. I don't really understand why the defense is struggling so much in zone coverage cause it's not like Mike MacDonald didn't use it but maybe he was more balanced with it than Zach Orr is or his zone coverages just wasn't as complexed . Even Chuck Pagano defense is known to use zone coverages alot and John Harbaugh himself comes from a zone heavy defensive philosophy under Jim Johnson .
It was always talked about with Mike Mac, the way he teaches it to the players apparently makes it very simple for all levels of the defense to play cohesively. I think Orr is trying to do what Mike Mac did but he just isn’t him and can’t do what he did, and is also putting an emphasis on not giving up 1-2 play TDs but can’t clamp down when the field gets shorter
 
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