I think the plan for the future is what the plan has been :
Draft LB on the second day, hope to get lucky with a good fit, and sign veterans to fill in whatever holes remain. And draft a LB on the first day on the rare (hasn't happened yet but supposedly has been close) occasion that value meets fit meets need.
The "plan for the future" is what you've seen executed over the last few years.
Quite apart from the fact that linebackers, especially ILBers, is the heart and soul of this defense, there are a number of problems with the "draft day 1 linebackers and get the superstar of tomorrow" approach.
First, this is an incredibly intricate, complex defense that radiates from the ILB position out. It requires a certain type of player (a true "tough guy") who's not only athletically gifted, but smart, in the sense that his brain is truly a sponge.
Even veterans who have come in from other systems have difficulty picking this system up. Because of this innate difficulty, it takes your incoming rookie considerably longer to learn this system and apply it, proportionally so. On the job training yields big dividends, but that's down the road, and since the learning curve is steep, this often translates into mistakes, which invariably can negatively impact the outcome of games.
Why pay that price on your team, when other organizations can, and will, do it for you?
The corollary of this point is, you don't entrust your keys to to the kingdom to a rookie unless his name is Lawrence Taylor, or the proven reincarnation of Ray Nietzsche.
Second, there is an exotic symbiosis between the ILB position on this team and every other position on defense. Few teams exhibit this symbiosis, but this one does.
Not to argue too harshly against the "draft the possible superstar" syndrome, but I strongly suspect the thinking of this team's brain trust is, if you draft that "superstar", and he develops into that which you think he will, then there is the inherent danger that the defense becomes dependent on him. If he should subsequently go down, the hole created will cause a drop in production, not just at that position, but the entire defense, as the team's chemistry becomes upset.
One of the distinguishing hallmarks of the BB-era defenses is the remarkable way in which they handle injuries, even when numbers approach catastrophic levels. The secret herein lies in the fact that this team is much more wont to take players who are good, very good, but not necessarily great, and coach them to the system. The system is everything. When a player goes down, his replacement will play to the same approximate level as his predecessor. There is no real drop-off in level of play, with the consequence being the defense's chemistry remains intact.
In this system, the team's coaches necessarily ask a lot of their players, but no player is asked to do more than he can. That's an important part of the symbiosis I mentioned earlier. When the "superstar" goes down, who fills that large hole, especially after the team has become dependent on him?
Two years ago, I thought they'd draft the big kid, Manny Lawson, and maybe take a stab at Abdul Hodge, but the drafted Maroney and CJ instead. That led me to believe they were going to stock up big-time in this year's draft, given the number of picks they had, but the value wasn't shown to be there.
It's entirely possible that next year, the brain trust
will try do do something about the ILB position on Day 1, maybe even in the first round! But I'm not going to bet the mortgage on that.
Neither should anyone else.
It's obvious - this team simply likes, and puts it's trust, in veteran linebackers that they think have shown the requisite levels of talent, both physical and mental, for this important position. That's what the record shows, and since the past is prologue, I submit
this is the "plan for the future".
