Points on Landry and D-Line

Why would we have problems providing Washington is healthy? He is a past Pro Bowler and arguably our best defensive player. Marshall is moving back to his natural weakside position. Our LB corps will be a strength, not a liability.

Although I would have loved to have gotten another D-lineman, IF Griffin can stay healthy and Carter performs like he did towards the end of last season, our defense will be fine. The improved secondary will certainly help. I guess only time will tell.

Why would we have problems providing Washington is healthy? He is a past Pro Bowler and arguably our best defensive player. Marshall is moving back to his natural weakside position. Our LB corps will be a strength, not a liability.

that's the question; is he/will he be healthy? Same w/Rocky. The weekend's wash post articles seemed to throw it out there that both might not be ready.

That makes sense of the LB selections. i guess the coaches felt that there was less depth at LB than d line. On this thread everyone seems to categorize our d problems as d line or secondary. The LB corps had a lot to do w/our horrible 06 as well. I"m really concerned about Washington and Rocky though, we need both to play big for us.

According to what I've read from most reports, Rocky's surgeries were very minor. In addition to that, I would be willing to bet that Marshall is slated to start (at least in the beginning) on the weak side. My MAIN concern is Washington. He played hurt most of the year, and he could either play at his same level at 2006, which seemed decent to me, OR he's going to be better and improved.

Solid post, as usual.

I think it's tough to justify not going DL at 6 or trading down to address it. What's been happening is that every year we don't address it, our defensive hole grows exponentially. On top of pushing back the start of a neccessary development process for the DL--thus delaying the rebuilding of our front 7, we also are doing two things with the current players:

#1) Waiting too long to get potential replacements on the roster for guys like Griffin, Daniels, Wynn, etc. It forces a necessary extention of their careers and a poor allocation of financial resources.

#2) Waiting while the window of oppertunity closes for guys like Springs, Washington, Fletcher, and Marshall, thus inherently giving us extra needs to fill when we need to be taking DLineman.

Landry does not help anyone get better on the defense. Landry is simply a good to great safety. But we had too many holes. We are building this thing backwards, and its going to cost us a lot financially against the cap, and the window of oppertunity is going to start much later now, and end about the same time. Less oppertunities to win it all.

Additionally, what happens next year if theres another prospect thats too good to pass up in round 1? We can't take him, because we pushed fixing the DL back another season. That's why we needed to go with Okoye such and such now, so that we could have grabbed the best available guy next year. Now we back ourselves into a corner for next draft, and every year we continue to ignore the DL, the defensive "hole" we are in will worsen exponentially.

Man, you are always bringing me down.....

While I can understand where you are comming from I have to disagree on some points. First of all, no one is making any mention of Salavea who is a pretty solid DT in our rotation. Secondly, I believe that the reason that our defense was so poor last year is because of injuries and no depth in the secondary. I know that there are those of you who will say that we couldnt stop the run either. Well, here is my rebuttle for that. Teams would throw on us all day and get a lead on us. Once they had a lead in the third and fourth quarters, teams could just start pounding on us because our defense had already been run ragged. The offense didn't help by keeping our defense on the field so long by not sustaining drives.

We have already drafted 2 young DT's last year, and we will probably get another DE next year. At first I disagreed with what the Skins did in the draft, but after a little consideration I can understand why.I was counting on Saleve'a to start for us this year.

His contract expires after thiss year though and we'd be hard pressed to bring him back. Golston is small, and a No. 2 DT at best--and hopefully we get that from him...but who is the 1 when Griffin becomes an age/acp casulty?

Landry doesn't help anyone get better on defense???????? Judging from this and previous posts that you have made I have to ask, do you understand that every team in the NFL play's with 2 safeties? You seem to think all you need is 1.

If Landry is everything as billed, he will immediatly provide help for Taylor and allow him more freedom in the secondary, he will then provide single coverage on any TE in the league, as well the ability to man up on just about every WR and RB, something AA couldn't remotly do last season, he then will privide a big help to our CB's with his abilty to eat up ground when the ball is in the air, he will also allow for more corner blitzes knowing both our safeties can cover just about any WR in the league. I wont mention the dropped balls in the middle of the field because WR know that no matter who hit's them when the go across they are going to be knocked silly. How's that for starters?

As for your DL, what happens if the players you wanted are just average players on the NFL level? What happens if you address the pass rush [you know like we did last year] and we get a player or 2 who are average where are we then? Without a safety and yet still a need for a pass rusher. untill we address the fact that Carter can't play the run teams will exploit that, just like the AA, why attack strengths in a defense when you can continually attack the weak spot. I didn't see anything spectacular coming out on the D-line, Landry could be a top safety, I would be surprised if we say that about any of these DL.Offiss, safeties are the last line of defense. The reason that they don't make anyone else look better is that everything they do on a football field is dependant on what the entire offense does, and what the other 9 players on defense have done. If the offense runs on you, the most successful defensive outcome is one where the safeties aren't involved.

If we were constructing the defense the "right" way (and I quote myself because right is just my perception of the correct way to build a defense), we couldn't justify taking two safeties in the top 6 in a span of 4 years. Those are picks that could have been used in more impact defensive positions. We don't have a single impact defensive lineman. Most decent teams have at least one. Heck, the Raiders have two!

So while I don't think we will be regretting this pick down the road at all, because we ignored the DL again this year, we will continue to regret previous picks like Rocky, Rogers, and even ST. I can't see our defense improving all that much this year, although I expect the LBs to play much better on the whole.

Our DL will just be last years DL, aged one year. That's what I mean when I say the problem will worsen exponentially.

Correct me if im wrong, but what makes Williams D unique is that he builds the D from the outside in rather then the inside out. He believes that blitzing and misdirection is the best way to create presure, and as we all know because of injuries to our secondary last year AND because of how bad AA was in pass coverage, we couldnt blitz as much cause we had to keep everyone in pass coverage therefore we could not get preasure on the passer. Now with the depth in the secondary, we will be able to send more guys in which will create more ints for rogers to drop and big play opprotunites for playmakers like taylor, washington, and hopefully landry to capitalize on. I believe that we will be back in the top 10 in D.Even though he build the D from the outside in, all defenses are reliant on a strong DL to be successful.

I think GW is trying to get production out of a DL without investing a lot of resources into it, which is good football strategy--but when you don't get that production, 2006 happens.

Personnel wise, our defensive line as it stands now is hardly any different from the line we had in '04 when we ranked 3rd overall on defense. The difference maker was Antonio Pierce.

Yes Pierce was a difference maker, yes Fletcher does address that need.

The OTHER difference between 04 and now is three years of aging.

Offiss, safeties are the last line of defense. The reason that they don't make anyone else look better is that everything they do on a football field is dependant on what the entire offense does, and what the other 9 players on defense have done. If the offense runs on you, the most successful defensive outcome is one where the safeties aren't involved.

If we were constructing the defense the "right" way (and I quote myself because right is just my perception of the correct way to build a defense), we couldn't justify taking two safeties in the top 6 in a span of 4 years. Those are picks that could have been used in more impact defensive positions. We don't have a single impact defensive lineman. Most decent teams have at least one. Heck, the Raiders have two!

So while I don't think we will be regretting this pick down the road at all, because we ignored the DL again this year, we will continue to regret previous picks like Rocky, Rogers, and even ST. I can't see our defense improving all that much this year, although I expect the LBs to play much better on the whole.

Our DL will just be last years DL, aged one year. That's what I mean when I say the problem will worsen exponentially.


You fail to understand that if you can cover all recievers with your corners and safties, that free's up your LB's to stuff the box and help with the run, so by adding this safety rather than a DL you essentially go from a 4-3 D, to a 5-3, or 6-3 D, that will go a long way to stopping the run.

You say we keep ignoring the D-line? Not so, we addressed it last year in Carter, and what happened? Everyone is now talking as if he doesn't exist, because basically he doesn't. I don't want DL for the sake of need, I want a difference maker and I didn't see that in this draft, not one of these guy's is better than Mario Williams was coming out last year and take a look at how much trouble MW had against NFL caliber lineman. Landry on the other hand has the opportunity to be great, and I think he will achieve that goal fairly early in his career, while allowing Taylor to ascend to the #1 saftey in the league!