He should be benched until he can get truly healthy again. If not put him on injured reserve. He is getting burned in the passing game every other play and is not filling gaps or shedding blocks in the running game. I don't understand why they keep playing him more than Hewitt. Hewitt has played great the few snaps he has gotten he should be the new starter. Also Paysinger is outplaying butler, our starting LBs should be Kiko, Hewitt and Paysinger. We need to fix the LB situation fast because they are the main reason the defense is getting torched every week.
What's so funny? We barely survived the last game we couldn't stop them until they got to the goaline. Teams are moving the ball down the field pretty easily on us every week except the rams game, and in that game it was mostly the weather that made both offenses look horrible and the defenses look better than they are.
LBs in general are a big problem, I don't think we have 1 quality LB, Kiko's made some big plays recently, and he will make some decent athletic plays, but the rest of the time he is avg or flat out sucks, the game vs the 9ers he was awful besides catching the tipped ball, and the final hit, he takes horrible angles, and is washed by blocks. Jenkins it seems had more of a fluke season a couple years ago, he hasn't shown much at all since then. I think all our LBs are back up quality, not horrible, but sub standard starters.
the great defensive play has masked the weakness of this unit at LB. But we all knew that had to happen since the offseason.
I think LB is our biggest opportunity in the offseason...we have to get guys on the outside that can cover. Its been atrocious at times.
Jelani was once a promising young LB. He's flat out bad now. Every once in a while he flashes the goods, but he's routinely bad now. Shame. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I really liked Jenkin's talent level. I had him as one of the LBs you could build around, but he has been a huge disappointment this season. I don't know if it's due to injury or if his head is not in the game. Or maybe he just didn't develop? I generally favor developing players to pursuing high priced FAs or high draft picks at certain positions unless I see that player's talent level as a difference maker. LB is one of those positions, but sometimes guys just don't develop as you hoped.
Yup, Jenkins was my "worst player ever" for the podcast this week. He is just no where to be found, and is constantly out of position and slow. I really liked him out of Florida, and hoped for some big things. But he is clearly being outplayed by Hewitt and even Paysinger.
Yet the announcers kept on mentioning Jenkins as one of the reasons the LB play was so poor .I have never seen such poor LB play.We do need better LBs but clearly Jenkins was missed.
Jenkins was not missed, he hasn't been able to cover anybody all season. In the last game against Francisco he got burned quite a few times I think the problem here is more the scheme than the players, none of the linebackers have shown the ability to cover anybody. They all can't be that bad, which leads me to believe the problem is the zone scheme and/or the coaching.
Paysinger got a higher grade against the ravens than Jenkins has gotten all season. According to pro football focus. He is definitely alot better against the run than Jenkins. And they are both equally bad against the pass. All miami linebackers are bad against the pass. I believe it's a problem with the system. They all can't be that bad in coverage.
Watched Jenkins a lot at Florida and was hoping he'd make a leap in development, but alas it's really the same m.o. He struggled mightily with physical play and shedding blocks at Florida. His upside was good speed/athleticism, good in coverage and he was a very good student and pretty intelligent. That latter point may have been why he saw the field early for us as he was smart enough to understand our concepts, call defenses and know where to be when that whole LB core went down and he was all we had. Ultimately, it seems the speed of NFL skill position guys has proven too much for his coverage abilities and he's still getting owned by physical play in the run game. No bueno.
I thought Paysinger was playing pretty well vs the run as well, he's made a couple good thumps out there, but he is back up quality, like our entire LB corps imo, inc Alonzo, he's the best of them, but he's got serious flaws for a starting MLB, in this D especially. I'd be happy with all of them as back ups, but we need real NFL caliber starters there.
Missing Jenkins against the Ravens wasn't say much....tallest midget and all that. They were flat out awful Sunday. Jenkins has been a liability all year, the stats prove it. However, he strikes me as one that plays better with better talent around him (who doesn't) and of course has been littered with injuries this year. So Ill give him a chance to earn a spot next year if I am the staff, hes done good things for us in years past.
Electric Boogaloo: You hit on the head a lot of what I would say about Jenkins, though I didn't know or think that he was 'intelligent' from a football sense as it always seemed like he was slow on the uptake to me. My hunch was that he was just coasting on athleticism and once that had declined, which it now has because of injuries, he's just useless out there. I never thought Jenkins was a good linebacker from a technical standpoint, but I admit that I was seeing it a different way and maybe that lack of ability to shed blocks is what made me think it was lack of instinct. I remember when Jenkins started he was a special teams guy who was forced into playing LB before he was ready and that he's never seemed to get beyond that level of ability IMO. Now that the special athleticism is gone he just seems to be an awful NFL linebacker.