The part about Joyner having a good game is ignorant. Two penalties, horrible coverage on all but maybe two plays, out of position constantly and drowned out in run game.
But this part is spot on and why our defense struggled....
"The Rams have two small players in their front here (Lamarcus Joyner and Mark Barron) along with Alec Ogletree, who struggles with play strength despite his size. The appropriate way to mask with would be to clog the interior and hope that the smaller, weaker second level players can get out into space and make plays there. Instead, Williams spreads out the defensive line and forces the smaller players to hold their own over the middle of the field. That’s poor common sense.
Similar to the still shot above, the Rams used a spread out defensive line here and expected the small, weak second level players to handle power. The Rams were wrong to do so. Barron got killed by the pulling tight end. Ogeltree got ran out of the play by left tackle Joe Staley. Joyner was kept away from the play by a tight end. On this particular play, only Barron showed any sort of aggression, but he was not strong enough to handle the pulling blocker at all. This play was a disaster and opened up a running lane that not even Trent Richardson could have botched."
