I agree that the reasons for the poor pass efficiency D are multiple. My sense is that our CBs are not shut down, cover corners; and they were not often asked to provide press coverage. Perhaps that was by design. Or, maybe that was done to maximize the available talent.
Regardless, if the DBs are shutting down the current group of WRs in practice ( I would include the safeties in this), I think that speaks more to the ability of the WRs than the prowess of the CB/DBs
I disagree wholeheartedly on really almost every count. I don't pretend to know via any sources or first-hand observations, so you could be right, but I don't see it that way.
For one, the term shutdown or lockdown corner really only applies to a couple guys each year. Most teams not only don't have lockdown corners, there are basically no teams that have two or more of them.
So I agree there are guys who are better in man coverage and those that can get picked on there and may need to play more zone. But really most teams play a lot of zone anyway due to all the spread offenses and players out in patterns, etc.
Anyway, I really like our corners and think we haven't been as good OR as deep there in a long, long time. Anderson isn't the quickest or best in man coverage, but he's solid and Lyn and Reddish looked really good last year. Whigham is supposedly in that class.
As for the WRs, I think most offenses are set up these days to try and create mismatches and open space for guys to work in. It's nice to have a guy who's a physical specimen like Julio Jones or so quick he's tough for anyone to stick with, like Tayvon Austin or that type. But ultimately you can move the ball with pretty average receivers as long as they know the system, catch the ball when it comes their way and can occasionally make something happen after the catch.
That's a long way of saying, the position probably won't be a strength for us as it was last season, but it's not like we're running Tim Lane and Bruce Williams out there (no disrespect to those two and they had no chance playing in that offense anyway, but they weren't our most talented WRs). If these guys consistently run their routes and catch the ball, we should at least be around average here, IMO.