The O line has had 2 games with the starting players playing together all year. That lack of continuity gives the advantage to teams that have been healthy on the O line. I think they are going to get better as the learn to play together but it might be to late.There seems to be more motion than logic overall in this thread. I'll try and ignore the frustrations of the last few weeks, from what I see:
1 LB
It looks to me like LB play is absolutely killing our D. Awful against the pass and poor against the run.
While our S play has been poor I think they're caught between being 'deeper than the deepest' and having to come up and cover the short/intermediate routes because our LBs can't cover.
Especially with Shanny and McVay in our div who want to attack the middle of the field this is a brutal weakness.
I still think Jamal was brought in to be a tbis LB/S specifically to own that area, but he's too banged up to play closer to the line an too poor in coverage to be a pure S.
2. Scheme/Approach
Other coaches seem to come up with game plans to exploit our weaknesses, wheras we seem to keep lining up with a "they have to deal with us" approach.
We also don't seem to be utilising our roster well at all. If LBs are killing us but we have a bevvy of DBs who like to play fast and aggressive (Spoon, Brown, Bryant, etc) we should change our scheme to get thm on the field more. Same on O, we have a lot of talent at TE what we're just wasting trying to force the ball to DK and JSN.
I can't really call out the DC/OC. Our LB/S limitations make it difficult for me to really judge Hurtt. Waldron seems to come up with some great drives, and then reverts to predictable/vanilla drives for long periods and I have no idea why.
3. Interior OL
We can't control the inner LOS which forces us into passing plays way to often. Not sure what happened to Lewis, he looked great of a rookie. Our C seemed to start the season strong but is fading fast.
I think our safeties are not playing to expectation and I think Wagner is older and is not as good against the pass... that's evident in the late part of the season although I thought Brooks was playing well.
So I agree with your assessment
LTH