I think the 'system', especially regarding Penilla, worked much better with Somi at LB. Dielna did stabilize the defending at that left side - and his distribution was good, initially - but lately it's just made our defense slow and not getting Penilla the space to do what he does well. I think the critical weaknesses for this team are at both outside backs. Somi is good going forward, but is limited in his 1v1 skills and has problems defending. Dielna is a solid defender, but not athletic enough to get far into the attack and still defend the position. On the right, Farrell seems to be trick-or-treat - he either makes a spectacular tackle or dribbling run/cross, or a face-palming pass to no one, dribble into traffic or missed dive-in tackle. I think we need quality two-way players on both sides to make this plan work consistently.
I agree that we need to look at finding upgrades all across the backline, im surprised by the lack of movement on that front. The problem with somi at lb is that he is a turnstile. We watched our backline be shaky twice this week, and asking jahlil and tony to do more while somi is 30 yards upfield half walking back seems like a recipe for disaster. The team almost won playing down a man for an hour against LA, and then played well enough that they should have grabbed pointa from the loons even with 3 players missing from suspension. Not sure if those results speak poorly to mental tenacity, game plan, lack of quality, lack of conditioning, nut the margin bwtween 6 pts and the 0 we got is pretty slim in those games. NY was a different story, their consistent quality really shows the are a perennial playoff team and the revs are "a bunch of hard working overachievers" who are happy to battle at the red line.