"We felt we had one of the best available nose tackles and he was on our own team," Ireland said. "When he was in there he was very good. He has the body type to be a nose. Very powerful." http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/miami-dolphins/fl-dolphins-main-0424-20100423,0,1734916.story
I think until Wake shows some cover skills or solid run D, the jobs is there for Edds to win. Edds is a good cover player and with Dansby moving around between downs, we need a good cover guy to take over when we play passing teams. Especially in Nickel packages when we play serious pass coverage.
Yepp...I think we will see a healthy rotation between the LB/DL. I hate we have to wait till August for football
Starks is entering his 7th season in the NFL but hes still just 26 years old. Doesnt turn 27 until December. Funny how our defense was the oldest in the NFL just two seasons ago and now were young all over. Heres a look at our current defense and key backups (Im assuming some of our rookies break the lineup sooner rather than later :-) ) DE Odrick - 22 / Merling - 25 NT Starks - 26 / Solai - 26 DE Langford - 24 OLB Wake - 28 ILB Crowder - 26 ILB Dansby - 28 OLB Miso - 23 / Anderson - 28 CB Davis - 22 CB Smith - 22 / Allen - 31 SS Y Bell - 32 FS Jones - 22 / Clemons - 24 In fact, of the 77 players currently listed on the Dolphins Roster, only 7 are 30 or older: Jason Ferguson Chad Pennington Ricky Williams Yeremiah Bell Will Allen John Denney Jake Grove
I love it. Starks has played NT before, and was very good at it. IIRC, he played NT in a 3-4 at Maryland as well. Starks is incredibly strong, so I see no problems for him playing the position. He also seems excited about the move. What I'm interested in knowing, is where does the NT line up in a Nolan defense? If he lines up in the 1 technique (A gap, between Center and Guard) as opposed to the 0 technique directly over the Center, I think he can be a force there ala Jay Ratliff.
This move will be one of the more important decisions the FO makes this offseason. Hope it doesnt blow up in our faces. If Starks is not successful at NT, then we potentially weaken ourselves at two positions - NT and DE. Of course, Im not suggesting that he will fail, but rather that its a bit of a gamble to move Starks given how well he played last year. Fingers crossed.
It's good to see he's got the enthusiasm to do it. That's one of the things I do have to say I love about what this FO is doing. They seem, in this offseason, to be getting serious hard nosed football players. Guys who don't understand the meaning of quit. Sometimes that can be taken to the extreme (past issues with Incognito), but I think for the most part it's just going to make our entire team a lot more intense. Last season it seemed that as the games went on, people kind of shut off (judging by the amount of points we gave up in the 4th). I have a feeling this season is going to be totally different.
This makes the Odrick pick make so much sense. A solid run stuffing tackling machine to play beside Starks the new NT. Our whole line, including backups are tall, big strong and fast. Our front 7 is going to be a force. Teams are going to have a hard time running against us and seeing clear lanes for passing. Our trenches just got a whole hell of a lot better this offseason.