Apart from last season, Mike Zimmer’s defense has ranked no worse than 11th in points allowed over the past ten seasons. Among defensive coordinators and defense-oriented head coaches, only Bill Belichick can claim that level of sustained success defensively over the past decade, although Mike Tomlin with the Steelers is close, and Vic Fangio isn’t far off either.
But last year was a disaster for Zimmer’s defense- a perfect storm created by: a) turning over the defensive roster, replacing several guys not earning their cap space with mainly rookies to get under the cap; b) finding out after-the-fact that there would be no off-season or pre-season to train those rookies; and c) losing almost all the key starters Zimmer was counting on to ease the transition - Pierce, Hunter, Barr, Hill, Hughes, Boyd, Kendricks - even Dantzler for four games.