Can we afford Donnie Edwards?

[jcdavey]

Well, when the guy holds up well against a very solid run blocking OL and a great blocking TE and is able to toss them aside to make the tackle on the ball carrier with regularity, I'm not sure why he'd suddenly be a liability on run D in other games. Obviously, he has the ability and skill to disengage from blockers. But yours is a fair point in that one game is a small sampling.

Still, are you suggesting that SD's stout rush defense of the past few years, the same rush D that was ranked top three in the league for a couple years if memory serves, excelled in spite of Edwards and his 100 tackles per year?

yes, the run D in sd was basically set up to funnel the tackle opportunites to donnie, anyone could have got the number of tackles he did, and been dragged far fewer times, i think vilma probably would have had a shot at defensive mvp in our defense.

you also have to realize donnie was auditioning for a new contract from some team during that game.

all that being said, NE does get more out of talent than most teams so donnie could fit into their plans perfectly.

You are looking at a guy though who is looking for top money for his position, and he's about to be 34, and i think he's the kind of guy who values $ over success, but we'll see.

 

[Wotan_the_Wanderer]

yes, the run D in sd was basically set up to funnel the tackle opportunites to donnie, anyone could have got the number of tackles he did, and been dragged far fewer times, i think vilma probably would have had a shot at defensive mvp in our defense.

This strikes me as counter intuitive in that it's beyond my grasp of reasoning that a run defense in a 34 would feature one guy to make the bulk of the tackles especially when that one guy is a liability against the run as you suggest. So in this sense, I suspect you're over stating things.

You are looking at a guy though who is looking for top money for his position, and he's about to be 34....

Like I said in a previous post, the amount he commands in a new contract and his age are to me the more critical questions.