Actually, Bland is better than Lewis and Brown.
The problem is Bland took Lewis spot when he got hurt and was able to play well. When Brown got hurt, Joseph came in and played like shyt. Now they finally moved Bland to the outside, but now they don’t have a good player to fill in the slot.
LVE ain’t really missed. The problem is with the defensive line. This defense doesn’t have an identity outside of rushing the passer. And they come with all of these weird formations to try to disguise who’s coming, but they are always out of position and don’t have any gap discipline. This has been a problem all year.
And teams have figured out, you can’t neutralize the pass rush by simply mixing in the run, get rid of the ball quicker and don’t allow them to sub out as much. Eventually you can wear them down. Michah had to literally tell the coaches to call a time out because they were gassed before the final play.
Which leads to my last point. This team is poorly coached. This team has talent, but for whatever reason, be it the culture, the spotlight, the Jones family, the star on the helmet, this team and past teams are horrible when it comes to situational awareness, and discipline.