#9 Overall Pick 2012 - Luke Kuechly, LB

yup. Glad to have a gutsy smart football player who many regard as a "sure thing" and arguably the best defensive player in this draft. The guy can stop running backs and probably cover a TE better than any LB we've had in . .. maybe forever. However, does not speak well for FO confidence in Davis and Beason to stay healthy IMO. Looking forward to seeing him blanket Graham in week 2!

 

Congrats! Your FO made the right move and took the BPA. That makes two years in a row.)
Got your leader on offense last year. Now you have your defensive leader (maybe not immediately but eventually. Kuechly is an awesome football player!

 

Not a huge fan of the pick personally. Hurney and co went with the safest pick that would contribute. I'm just having a tough time reconciling what our LB corp will look like. Beason on outside? He's clearly better in the middle. I guess the rookie can contribute as a SAM and let Anderson control the weakside, but who knows.

I also imagine we were trying to trade down but nobody gave a shit about moving up for anything. It goes back to our slot at number 9. It just wasn't a good spot to be drafting.

 

I can't imagine that they made this move without having serious concerns about Beason's ability to return to his old level.

 

Big fan of the pick and player.

Im the asshole that claimed there was no way in hell we take him. :/

 

yeah, again kudos to anyone who said we would. It's still not logical. But, there's no doubt we'll have a better defense if we made no further picks on that side.

 

Interesting. Watching him have a bad game vs. Clemson, and then take over the damn game vs. Miami....

 

Coming around on the pick some. If he can play outside with our current LB's we will be solid. The thing our current crop lacks, and I'm not sure Kuechly upgrades, is blitzing. Dude has nice instincts and can chase down the ball carrier but doesn't help get after the passer and for a LB at 9 its something nice to have.

That being said hes a pretty complete player and I understand why they went the safe route.

 

they're both on youtube since you mention them:





and he's clearly better against Miami. But he covers ground one way or another.

The more I think of him, I'd want to just have him weakside and let the rest happen as it plays out.

I'm also reminded of the biggest attribute we haven't yet gotten out of Rivera that he promised on day 1. Tackling. We got a QB, we got TEs, and so on. he mentioned tackling and we were shit there. Willing to bet there's no way we don't get better there, and I mentioned Kuechly was a benefit to TB for the same reason (they were so much worse than us, I don't think Barron will make up that much of the difference).

 

Barron will be alright Im sure, but even then, you need the other pieces in place. Their DL looks ok.

Man, the tackling was awful. Kuechly at the very least will improve that, yes. I'm excited about that. He almost feels like a Derrick Brooks out there....

Man, at this point, I'm thinking in this order....and this is just off the top of my head so forgive me if Im missing a badass player...

1.Upshaw DE/LB
2.Hayward, CB
3.Jenkins CB
4.Glenn, G
5.Worthy, DT
6.the dude from Stanford who dropped, gah...Martin or some shit, the real good OT kid who plummeted....dude can play.
7.Konz as G
8.Hill WR
9.Jeffery WR
10.Still DT who I still can't figure out why people dump on this dude.

Bah.