In the 2 seasons prior to this year, our defense really took a hit with the loss of SDH. Some of that was minimized by Foster and Evans still being there, but this year we have less collective experience at ILB than we've had in quite a while. Mack has never had to be "The guy" before, and Dylan is highly talented, but still pretty green.
I think we are just feeling the growing pains that most teams have when replacing that much talent on one side of the ball. We have been fortunate to reload with little drop-off over the years, but I believe we simply lost too much at one time this year. I believe Saturday was a learning experience, and I believe they will improve.