Piff Perkins
Veteran
Agreed on the first point, it looks significantly better. And it's allowing Kerby Joseph to just worry about deep safety instead of having to constantly try to come down hard and bail out a CB (resulting in a big gain when he's out of position). I thought Davis did as well as he could but it was simply another example that offense gets to do whatever. DK was straight up tackling dudes out there yet the only OPI was a somewhat questionable flag on Lockett. "Questionable" compared to all the ones that simply were not called.
Branch not being out there really hurt the run defense. All those big Walker runs were outside, he couldn't get shyt inside. Another thing...this team clearly missed Davenport and Barnes on contain, and I'm not sure what the solution will be. Granted I think the defense was exhausted by that point so I can't definitely say outside runs will be a problem until those guys return. We shut outside runs down multiple times in the first half, mainly via Anzalone/Davis/Campbell.
I'm still not concerned about Arnold, he'll figure it out. Everything else looks good for him. I saw multiple CBs on both sides getting grabby without getting calls, but he gets it every time he grabs.