The story of the year on the defensive side of the ball: the emergence of young and talented players. Moving from the back to the front, we see the safeties with pro bowl years, literally. The Troy Polamalu type player, Earl Thomas a second year player, had another outstanding year. Kam Chancellor was a powerful weapon at the other safety spot. Kam was also in his second year but was able to start this year from game one. Throughout the season, opponents were able to get to know these two up close and personally. Between the two of them, they were a hard hitting, great covering players.
The cornerbacks started out with not know exactly who was going to start on a week to week basis. We picked up several young corners in the off season in either the draft or the spring workouts. Brandon Browner was of those players who came to the workouts and was able to make the team. He played several years in Canada and each year was an all-star in the league. Marcus Trufant was healthy and excited for the year. Walter Thurmond and Richard Sherman were also young and competing for a starting job. In the first couple games, Browner and Trufant were the two starters but after an injury to Trufant, Thurmond came out and did a great job. Unfortunately after a couple games, he got injured and Sherman stepped in started the rest of the season. Between Sherman and Browner, we had the tallest set of corners in the league. All of these players gave great performances all year. It was the first year in several that we had great corner performances. Grade: A-
The linebacking crew was also very good this year. Aaron Curry was traded half way through the season because of lack of performance. Though young, he was not getting to the spots quick enough and unable to perform like a top 5 pick in the 2009 draft. There was also another player who was playing at a higher level than he was. That player was KJ Wright who was drafted in this year 2011. So there was no need to keep Curry around. KJ came in finally at the starting spot half way through the season and he got better each game. David Hawthorne played solid all year long. He filled the holes and took goo angles. Though not the fastest nor slipperiest player, he did get the job done. LeRoy Hill played the other outside position. He had a good year. Not great but did a decent job. Overall for the linebackers, at least for the last half of the season, did a good job. Grade: B
Down in the trenches we got great performances all around. On the edges, Clemons and Bryant where both tremendous. Their backups were both great as well. Hargrove was picked up from the free agency market after a few games and came in his first game for us and had a sack and a half with several tackles. Inside at the tackle positions Mebane and Branch were big road blocks. For the season, we did very well with stopping the run game in and game out. We did alright with getting pressure to the quarterback. Grade: B+
Next week we will look at the special teams.
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