Holy crap....Dansby isn't great? Right now, outside of Ray Lewis (questionable at this point) is better at ILB than Dansby? Yeah JT and JP were our most "accomplished" pass rushers, but damn, I still think half of JP's sacks last year came due to Wake and Starks pushing the pocket towards him.
Brainfart by me..how the heck could I forget Willis? Ok then, Willis is probably 1, Dansby 2, Ray Lewis 3?
Well, hopefully Dansby can be the best ILB...for our system. Nolan blitzes his ILB's and Dansby has the skillset to make that work. As for the rest of the OLB crew, we just have to wait and see who steps up as none of them have been Starters in the NFL.
our question is at OLB ... not ILB .... the combination of Anderson, Wake and Misi will need to produce -- and immediately to buy the secondary some time to gel ...
Thats about right I think for our LB's. As much as I love Dansby, and he was my #1 target this offseason, the rest of our LB's are very much unproven (Wake, Misi, Anderson, Edds, Spitler, McCoy, etc), uninspiring (crowder), or inconsistent to this point in their careers (Dobbins). The only reason we got ranked that high in my opinion was because Parcells' history of drafting linebackers is studly.
Interesting how he states San Diego's LB corps is very mediocre. Luckily I don't trust his opinion, otherwise I'd feel worse about getting their backup in Dobbins.
I swear Jason Cole is just star-crossed, cursed to look like an idiot. His original write-up looked like this: Then when Manish Mehta went all stupid and incompetent on everyone, evidently Cole edited his work and turned it into this: The irony? That being that when I read the original report I actually thought to myself, hey that's actually a pretty good breakdown of Miami's linebacker situation. But it figures that a good breakdown doesn't stand with Jason Cole. He's got to **** it up somehow. So he edited his work to make sure he injected the proper amount of idiocy in his writing.
We may have a lot of questions about our LB corps, but Porter and Jason Who? were a sure bet to under perform and tire out in the 4th qtr of most games IMHO. At least we've injected some size, strength and youth into the OLB spots. And I still think the hiring of Ray Sheridan and Mike Nolan will make the difference here. What good is even Jason Who? at his prime when opposing teams pretty much know when & where we're blitzing.
Well, if the default starters are Anderson and Moses, that would be a bottom third duo simply because they are such unknowns, they can play a bit from what I've seen but I would call them dynamic. Now Wake and Misi would be dynamic "but" they are also unknowns. They could easily wind up with 25 sacks between them, or they could look terrible while they learn their jobs on the fly.
Bringing Taylor back was a waste of time and we should have traded Porter when his value was up. Hanging on to Roth because of his age would have been smarter. We pissed away a year of development on those two washed up has beens. What a shame because we weren't going anywhere last season anyways. Glad to see them both gone and look forward to seeing the young guys get on the field.
Wake and Misi are worth the time and trouble to develop. Anderson and Moses are bottom feeders who provide a little depth at best.
We shall never agree on that one killahp. I've said A Thomas makes sense for us, and would replace Q, but Q is a solid, if plain, OLB, and if AT is off the menu I'd like to see what McCoy can do at OLB.
I'm with you on this one. Q's a competent guy to have strong side on first and second down while Misi plays 3rd and continues to learn. Same with Anderson and Wake on the other side. Let all four trade snaps and hope someone flashes. Woodley and Harrison they are not, but they'll have to do do for this year.
I know people always go back to that old saw about how important OLBs are in a 3-4, but IMO that's outdated thinking. In today's NFL, hybrid, nickel and dime defenses are predominant due to the ever increasing importance of the passing game. The key now is having two players in your front 7 that can pressure the passer (and a FS that can patrol deep, but that's another discussion). The Dolphins have that in Starks and Wake. Wake was one of the most effective pass rushers in the entire league last year on a per snap basis. And Starks pressure will come up the middle which is the most effective place to bring pressure from. They also have a third player in Dansby who can also be disruptive in the middle. I don't think he'll rack up huge sack numbers, but I do think he'll increase our QB pressures. Basically, I think we'll bring enough pressure with our front 7 be a top ten sack team again. Sure I'm hoping that Misi and Odrick will bring some pressure too. I think their skill set will fit nicely with the type of defense we're building. I also think that Anderson showed he can provide some pressure with what he did in his one start last year. I don't expect him to be a sack artist or anything but if you look at his pressures, sacks and QB hits from last year on a per snap basis you see that he was better than Porter and even with what Taylor produced last year. His numbers may or may not be the same this year, but I don't see any reasonable reason to expect that he'll be much of a downgrade if any from what we had last year. I also think that you shouldn't ignore Nolan's influence. I have concerns about our defense, but whether we'll be able to bring pressure isn't one of them. I see no reason to doubt that we'll be in the top half of the league (at a minimum in sacks, pressures and QB hits). IMO the much bigger defensive questions lay in the secondary.
I think you're spot on Rafael. I'd even further add that we'll be experimenting so much with alignments and blitz packages that a lot of teams around the league will look to see what works and what doesn't against any said opponent. We've got a diverse group of talent that can easily align in the 4-3 and vice versa. We can easily create mismatches by running stunts out of the 4-3 because our guys are so versatile. I personally want to see Wake lined up on the inside with Soliai out of 4 down linemen set in 3rd and long situations. Then just let Wake curl around Paul who'll be bulldozing the middle. Every one of our DE's is underrated when it comes to rushing the passer (even Merling who looked like a world beater before he got injured last year). Now with an attacking mentality on defense they can finally just pin their ears back. Add that to a much more athletic linebacking corps and I think we present a perfect balance in today's NFL.
I dearly hope so, we have some great 4 man Dline pieces, especially if Odrick and Merling develop. Well, with Porter/Taylor broken up, the leading OLB sack duo in the AFCE is: Derrick Burgess and Tully Banta Cain. And the way I see it, if TBC can manage 9 sacks, surely Anderson or Wake, or Both can.