According to ESPN, Mitchell had 43 tackles, 1 sack, 2 forced fumbles, and 2 fumble recoveries last season. http://www.nfl.com/player/marvinmitchell/2495681/profile Hopefully a very good special teams player!
You reckon Spit got hurt when he recovered that fumble? Rather than just curling up around the ball, with all those red shirts around him, he tried to get up and got knocked back down. Cannot recall if he played after that. Rivera was out there with Edds a lot in the 2nd half.
I'm kinda surprised they went with someone who is such a relatively proven prospect, with #1-3 pretty much locked up.
As someone mentioned earlier, I hope this leads to something coming out that Koa Misi isn't injured, but just dinged up.
I'm not impressed with Spitler in the time that I've seen him, so injury or not, this is a challenge to his spot on the team.
I thought Rivera looked pretty bad out there. I'll be thrilled if Mitchell is an upgrade to both Spitler and Rivera and plays well on STs.
Well, maybe I shouldn't be. He's your #4 ILB at best right now with Spitler out. That's more camp body, I would tend to think they'd want to go with more of a long-term project there. He's been in the league a while and has been used rotationally. Been trying to infer that, can't ever remember watching him. I saw a reference to him being in play to replace Scott Fujita so it seems likely.
Mitchell will be 27 in a couple of months, 6'3" and 250. He had few snaps and did nothing in 09. Last year he had 223 snaps and was ranked #27 overall (7.5) at ILB. He was graded above average on rush, cover, and run with marks of 1.2, 2.0, and 4.3. He had 14 tackles, 2 assts, 0 MTs, 1 sack, 3 hits, and 5 pressures. He was thrown at 9 times, 5 catches, 37 yds, 7.4 avg, long- 10, and 1 PD. He was on STs for 9 games, his 9 tackles were third on the team, 1 assist, but, missed 3 tackles, and had 1 penalty.
That Special Teams angle is what I was going to add, that is supposed to be his strength. 2 ST specialists?
I noticed that PFF's stats differed a lot from ESPN, which does happen but not to that degree. Mitchell also played SLB in the 4-3 for 138 snaps, 11 tackles, 1 assist and 1 MT, as well as MLB, in addition to R & L ILB. He only covered punts in the last game, making 1 tackle. The other 8 were in 8 games on kick returns.