Points on Landry and D-Line

[Beemnseven]

Originally Posted by JWsleep

Going in to Gibbs first year back, I recall everyone thinking that the Dline would be a weakness. That D was top 10. My hope is that Williams and Blache can make chicken salad out of chicken s*** here--they've done it before. And no doubt GWs defense mus have good safety play, so LaRon could have a big impact right away.

My guess is that we go with a big FA on the line next season, to avoid the development issue. And we draft some depth (because with any luck, we'll have a few more day-one picks).

In Gibbs' first year back, all of those D-linemen were three years younger. It only gets tougher to make that chicken salad as the years go by and no one has been brought along to prepare for their inevitable decline.

[Schneed10]

I will say this, you know how so many offenses tend not to throw near Champ Bailey? They're doing the same thing with Sean Taylor, though to a lesser degree.

Putting LaRon Landry back there, which side of the field are you going to avoid now? Both safeties close really quickly and have incredible range. So yes, I do think LaRon Landry will make other players better, namely Sean Taylor. More balls are going to come Taylor's way, we can probably expect more INTs, which we SORELY need.

So that's a plus. I do wish we addressed DT though. I'm comfortable with Andre Carter providing the pass rush, as we've said on this site, he came on last year and looked good. But DT, I'm not so sure. Gibbs and Williams are putting a lot of their eggs in the development of Golston and Montgomery at this point. Maybe they can be solid, but they got killed against the run last year. Maybe Fletcher can be like Pierce, and get the line in the right position before the snap. And maybe Salave'a will be over his plantar fasciatis problems and return to being a decent run stuffer.

But man, there are a lot of maybes in that last paragraph. I don't see a way we can stop guys like Philly's Shawn Andrews from opening massive holes against us. I think we're very vulnerable up the gut to the run.

[ChounsMan]

What I want to see from Landry & Taylor is the ability to force teams to alter their short yardage game. In the past we were not able to play more than 7 or so players in the box, obviously to protect against the TE option or the deep PA pass.

Now with one of the best projected pass covering safeties I hope teams respect us on 4th down and 1 & punt the damn ball or they will pay dearly!

Overall, I was pleased with the picks that were made. However, I don't think I would have selected a QB, instead I would have looked at o-line depth.

Should be interesting to see how this team shapes up in Camp in 2 months.

Campbell better be ready or we're still going backwards.......

[wushawn]

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.

[bigSkinsfan61]

Originally Posted by BigSKINBauer

I want to go back to the 2004-05 D with blitzes from everywhere. We never really did have a good d-line and we still were successful. Now we have a super fast and strong backfield and can easily afford to send a blitzer from the secondary and still have coverage back there. It will be mayhem.

exactly what i was goin to say i like the possibilities

[MTK]

Originally Posted by wushawn

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.

You are correct sir. GW's D works from the outside in. He's always brought pressure with corners, safeties and linebackers. Injuries were definitely a factor in what hand-cuffed what he could do last year scheme-wise.

[Beemnseven]

No matter how Williams' scheme works, you can't have bozos at the D-line.

[Schneed10]

Originally Posted by Mattyk72

You are correct sir. GW's D works from the outside in. He's always brought pressure with corners, safeties and linebackers. Injuries were definitely a factor in what hand-cuffed what he could do last year scheme-wise.

Yes this is all true, but the #1 premise of GW's system is stopping the run on 1st down so that the offense has to deal with 2nd and longs and then 3rd and longs. Then and only then can you feel comfortable bringing the noise with the exotic blitzes. He doesn't bring that ruckus on 2nd and 3.

He had a choice to make; rely on Prioleau, Springs, Fox, and Stoutmire to provide the coverage necessary to bring pressure from other places; or rely on the injury prone Joe Salave'a, undersized Kedric Golston, and the raw Anthony Montgomery to stop the run next to Griffin.

He chose to shore up the secondary. There were two problems on defense, and only one could be solved by picking at 6. Trading down to address both problems would have been much better; but since that wasn't possible, I can't really express a beef on Landry because he'll solve one of the problems. It's just I still think we're vulnerable to the run and won't be any better than middle of the pack on D this year because of it.

[Schneed10]

Of course, middle of the pack on D, combined with the offense we have, may be good enough to make the playoffs.

As we all know in our heart of hearts, our hopes ride on Jason Campbell.

[TheMalcolmConnection]

I think Fletcher is going to make more of a difference in the middle than people think.

[MTK]

It will all depend on how our current group at DL performs. If they can regroup and recapture some of the magic from 2005 we'll be ok. If they pick up where they left off last year or worse, of course we're in trouble.

Gibbs seems to think most of the defensive problems stemmed from coverage issues last year, so we'll see who was right by year's end.

Personally I don't see the cupboard being as bare along the d-line as some people seem to think.

[12thMan]

Originally Posted by Mattyk72

It will all depend on how our current group at DL performs. If they can regroup and recapture some of the magic from 2005 we'll be ok. If they pick up where they left off last year or worse, of course we're in trouble.

Gibbs seems to think most of the defensive problems stemmed from coverage issues last year, so we'll see who was right by year's end.

Personally I don't see the cupboard being as bare along the d-line as some people seem to think.

I agree here. I don't think the Dline is solely repsonsible for the breakdown in '06, nor are we in need of a major overhaul.

I think the additions of Landry, Fletch, and the rest of the gang flat out tackling, like football players are supposed to, will go a long ways in helping us getting back to that '04 form.

[Schneed10]

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.

I agree with TMC, London Fletcher should make a large impact on the team. He's a strong tackler himself, but his true value comes in the ability to get guys lined up in GW's defense a la Antonio Pierce. Fletcher could get the line back to form.

Also, Gibbs' more relaxed style this offseason on workouts will hopefully keep the players fresher and injury free.

These are all reasonable points, they all happen to be optimistic. I'm hopeful they pan out.

[Rajmahal33]

Landry is a good pick for one of the holes we needed to fill and I am not worried as much that the D-line wont get sacks like last year. What absolutely scares me is that teams ran all over us last year and that was our biggest problem on defense. We haven't done much to try to fix that problem by getting run stoppers on the D-line. Salavea may still have a good year left in him and Montgomery might step it up but its a risky gamble to trust that. Also Fletcher is a tackling machine and should help out with the run to some extent but if teams run off tackle we could have a tough time trying to stop them. All i'm saying is that we are a run first on O, stop the run on D kind of football team and we didn't focus in on that gameplan with the way we drafted this year. I am hoping that we can pick someone up to help us out but if not I am keeping my fingers crossed that everyone can outperform their expectations.

[The Zimmermans]

I dunno about fletcher to be honest. I hope he still has something left in the tank. But, with an old crappy D-line, these old LB's might suffer. We really needed Okoye in my opinion, young, big and fast, woulda helped fletcher a lot