Projected team strength and weaknesses

I've personally loved this thread because it has answered my questions about the difference between weak and strong side backers. So thanks.

From the peanut gallery comes my opinion on the D before and after Del Rio. Del Rio had Fields at his best and more or less Burton before he declined much. If there has been dimunition of our D in the past two years, its been noticably in the LB position. At that position we've had health problems with Fields and coach Mills. Morgan IMHO is not worth a shit without a 2 gapper keeping those linemen off of him. Burton out last year hurt Morgan alot. Through no fault of the D co-ordinator we had a very weak preformance last year out of the whole front 7,excluding Pep. Some injuries and even Fields wasn't quite his old self and Morgan wasn't worth a 5th of Jack. In other words Fields and Burton and a healthy Jenk was what made the 02 better than the 04 D.

 

You gave four, and each of which was wrong by the way. You can lie and spin as much as you want, but the facts keep proving you wrong and you keep ignoring them. Every player you mentioned was bigger than Davis, especially Jones and Sirmon. Plus we still haven't established that Daryl Smith even played SLB. Every source lists Akin Ayodele as the 16 game starter at SLB for the Jaguars. We have nothing but your word that he and Ayodele switched during games, which makes no sense schematically.

I realize that you're trying your damnedest to get out of lies and foolish statements, but no, I'm not taking it out of context. You didn't say that size is an issue but Davis can overcome it. In response to my assertion that strongside linebackers are bigger than weakside linebackers, you said "The whole size thing doesn't have much to stand on." You can try and spin that any way you want, and I'm actually glad that you now realize how stupid that statement was, but it's what you said.

In college. Do you have any idea at all how many individuals played a position in college they are incapable of playing at the professional level?

First off, he gained weight for the combine. If you knew half as much about football as you think you do, you'd know that combine weight is usually greater than playing weight.

The average weight for a strongside linebacker is 243 pounds. That means Davis is at least 13 pounds under weight, more if you count from his playing weight rather than his inflated combine weight.

Simply weighing more alone is not going to make him adequate. He needs to weight enough, regardless of whether our WLB weighs 210 or 250. Moreover, I notice how you again and again completely ignore the fact that Davis has below average upper body strength for a linebacker. I understand that it's something you'd want to overlook precisely because the need for upper body strength at SLB makes you appear to be a damn fool, but at least try to address it if you intend for your suggestion to be taken seriously. Hell, I'm all about convinced that you just made an off the cuff remark, never really thinking about whether or not Davis would be appropriate for SLB, and have been trying to gain back some dignity ever since being thrashed for how stupid your comments were.

I already explained this to "The Brain." Go back and read the comments about frame and its relation to weight carrying.

Yes, there is. The only people who even suggest it as a possibility are those who are too ignorant to know how silly a suggestion it is (casual fans, local newspaper columnists, website wannabees) and Magnus (who also made the bizarre suggestion long ago that Davis would be a good fit at FS).

Fox never said he won't play defensive tackle either. But we have this big, gaping hole at SLB with Fields gone and Davis isn't even being worked out at the position. What does that tell you, genius?

Dude, not only have you refused to comment when I've shown that you don't know what you're talking about regarding someone's weight, where they played, or general football knowledge; but you've even lied about your own comments when the quotes are there for everyone to see. Don't even pretend that you admit to anything.

 

#1) You didn't "clear" that up until well after you made comments suggesting that you had no idea Del Rio wasn't here in 2003. You kept talking about how our defense wasn't as good in 2004 as it had been the two previous years. That seems to indicate that you had no clue Trgovac was in charge for the 2003 season.

#2) We've already discussed how utterly and incredibly stupid it is to suggest that a one-year coach would magically make a unit just as good without him the season following his departure by enthusiasm alone. The fact is that the 2002 and 2003 defenses were statistically indistinguishable, and everyone knows about the litany of injuries we suffered through in 2004.

No chief, they don't. It's fine to screw up spelling and grammar on occasion, but you repeatedly used a word that doesn't exist. I ignored it the first couple of times, but I wanted to make sure you actually knew that it isn't a word or anything close to one.

Uhm ... I honestly have no idea what you're talking about here, nor does anyone else. Are delusions part of your mental "condition"?

I've given you the statistics twice now, and each time you pretended that you didn't see them. But to beat all, this time you actually pretend that I'm the one ignoring things. Holy crap. Being stupid is bad, but being unapologetically stupid is worse.

You are the only person I've seen who doesn't understand that we had injuries last year, and that injuries do negatively affect a defense's performance. Therefore I'm pretty sure I'm just calling you an idiot right now.

I don't have access to whatever reports teams had on his medical issues, but I can say that Arizona officials and major media outlets have suggested that Brown may have been the steal of the draft. It reminds me of Shaun Rogers, another guy I championed but who fell dramatically because of injury issues (we drafted Kris Jenkins instead, so we came out just fine). Rogers has gone on to make the Pro Bowl, and I expect that Brown will too.

Wrong. I said I didn't think Thomas Davis was a possibility for us since we have nowhere to play him this season with Witherspoon and Minter entrenched at WLB and SS respectively. That's still correct, but the team decided that they don't mind leaving the guy out of the base defense until 2007. It's noteworthy that I did say I wanted a play-making linebacker like Davis who will actually hit someone. I just didn't think Davis would be our guy because it's rare to pick a guy (aside from QBs and WRs) in the middle of the first round who won't start for you right away.

Seriously, check my record of predictions and evaluations against anyone, including Magnus. I have certainly made mistakes, like my skepticism regarding LaDainian Tomlinson, but I've been correct far more often than anyone else. Even the people who hate my guts know that.

But I will credit you for making your best post yet. It was fairly coherent and even stinging, a fairly significant step up from your usual garbled babble. I guess when you get pissed off you're a little less stupid than usual.

 

am i talking to a brick? did you or did you not say that our defense last year was as good as when Del Rio was here? (which is the stupid comment of yours i have asked about continually and you have continually dodged)

even if he someday makes all-pro, elton brown was not worth the 14th pick in the draft in way you slice it when we coulda got him with our 2nd pick. Mags was all too happy to take take Elton in the 2nd round in ya'lls (i know that is not a word as i knew that "microspec" was not a word just like i know that fanfuckingtastic is not word but still i use it for the fun of it ... i know Mags has coined some words on this board but i'm too tired to think them up) discussion. it seems to me that he is the clear winner in this argument. since all i know of you is what you've posted since you've been here lately, i have to go by that record and so far it seems to me that it sucks.

i understand a full litany of excuses given for why last year's D did not play well. i am even hopeful that my fears are as unreasonable as you suggest. Mag's said they were so and even in stronger terms. i'm not arguing that or trying to rehash an old argument to which i doubt you'd have anything of merit to add to Mag's side. (i'll go back and see why i even mentioned the argument if needed but at the moment others are waiting me to get off this contraption.)

 

Only word I can help blame myself for is "hand rimmer". And that was just being a muse for Meat...since he won't read this far into this fucking pile of blubberspeak, no worries. If I had twin fucktards that were fresh out of the oven, I'd worry less about it too.

 

No, I didn't. I said, and I quote: "As for Del Rio, it's already been proven that the idea that we were better under him is a total myth. Statistically we're almost identical in terms of yards allowed, points allowed, sacks, etc. People liked Del Rio more because he was fiery, not because we were performing better back then. Our rankings have dropped in the intervening period, but only because other defenses have gotten better, not because we've gotten worse."

What part of that do you have trouble understanding? We were just as good with Trgovac as we were with Del Rio. Last year wasn't Trgovac suddenly becoming someone of your intellectual level, or Del Rio's afterglow wearing off, it was just a matter of critical injuries killing our performance.

No player should be selected in the first round if you knew you could get him in the second, but that isn't how you evaluate their merits. A player's value is ultimately decided by how they play, not where they were drafted.

 

Could all this discussion indicate that Davis wasn't a good fit and we should have gone a different direction in Round 1?

 

This is a quote from Mike Carlson's current column on NFL Europe Free Agents germane to the discussion:

"7. Greg Carothers, LB, Amsterdam: A college safety, he played inside for the Admirals but is probably best suited, at 6-foot-2, 235 pounds for the weak side, especially on a team who asks their weak-side 'backers to cover and play in space rather than pass rush."

Full Article

Mike Carlson presents NFL coverage on the UK's Five network and writes a weekly column for Britain's First Down. He has covered NFL Europe for Pro Football Weekly, the International Herald Tribune and the Guardian, and broadcast it in 1992 for Screensport and from 1995-2004 for Sky Sports. He played football and lacrosse at Wesleyan University, and has written books about the film directors Clint Eastwood, Oliver Stone and Sergio Leone.

 

Nope. While his position isn't clear, the team's being open minded about how and where he'll go. It'll present itself in time, he's a football player.

 

yeah, with the two parties being far apart in Spoon's contract negotiations, his position may present itself next year.

Drafting Davis gave the team a little leverage in both the Minter and Spoon negotiations.