PATRIOTS-80 said:
Beisel bulking up to 248 lbs, which is exactly Bruschi's size is huge. Beisel's problem was four things:
1) It is a tough system to learn (just ask Chad Brown) and pick up
2) He was waaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyy underweight. It is hard for people like arrellbe to see toughness when you are underweight. A small LB is not going "to play the physical part of being a LB worth a damn"
3) People had unfair expectations. In fact, now he has a "hate club" on him, especially in the media after some jerk in the media kept harassing him. They look at everything he does in the most negative light possible.
4) You stick any underweight green LB next to Chad Brown, and that what you saw is what is going to happen. And that is just the way it is. If a healthy Ted Johnson played next to him (which was BB's plan), it would of been must easier for him.
BUT
Dan Pees looked at the film and saw a completely different Beisel from the beginning of the season to the end of the season. If BB was really worried about it, he would have gotten a replacement. And he DIDN'T.
A BULKED up Beisel who can go through his second training camp and has a year under his belt is going to be better than last year's Beisel who broke camp.
Our OLB depth chart looks like this:
Vrabel Colvin
TBC Mincey
Our ILB depth chart looks like this
Bruschi Beisel
Claridge Roach/Alexander
It is obvious that we are going to go to battle with Beisel and TBC.
Ok. I hear you. There are some points for discussion, though.
First - do you have a URL reference for Pees comments ? I had asked pats23 in another thread, but haven't gotten an answer yet. I would be really interested in reading any comments he might have made.
I hear your points 1 through 4. But my commentary on the last two games don't have ANYTHING to do with learning the system, his weight, or who happened to be the other ILB. The points were:
Most importantly and hard to believe, he simply doesn't tackle/hit runners that are RIGHT IN FRONT OF HIM. That really doesn't have anything to do with the points that you made. Honest - all you have to do is look at the plays in slo-mo. It appears that he simply doesn't have even the basic fundamental of a LB - you hit the runner if he's in front of you. You may find my observation hard to believe - but all you have to do is look at the plays in those games. The one play at the goal line is just unbelievable. On a goal line play, if you have even a chance at hitting the runner from the side, you drive at him as hard as you can to see if you can take away his forward motion. Biesel not only didn't do that, he just drifted sideway toward the goal line paralleling the runner - he wasn't trying to take an angle or anything - he never moved toward the runner at all and was standing at the end of the play looking at the runner. That's useless. Maybe you can coach a LB out of that ?? ?? ?? I guess I don't think that's something you can coach.
Weight would help fight off a block successfully. But first, you have to fight against the block. Every play I observed, once a blocker engages him, Biesel just quits. As I mentioned in the original post, he typically got driven back 5 yards. Worse yet, he never even tried to shed off a block to pursue a runner off to one side even after getting pushed back 5 yards.
In a 3-4 defense, the ILBs have to take on any blockers that get past the line and still make the tackle for little gain. I'm not sure I saw Biesel shed even one block. I didn't comment before, because I don't know what the ILB call was for the plays I watched, but I don't think I saw Biesel move up once to take on a block right at the line in the gap where a blocker might becoming thru the 3 man front. Maybe that wasn't what he was supposed to do - I don't know, but at least a lot of the time it seems to me you see Bruschi or Vrabel charging right up to the line to take on anyone coming thru the 3 man front. One observation that I made was that a couple times when Biesel did move up to the line on the snap, he seemed to not go to the gap in front of him but instead moved right up against the back of the lineman in front of him. Now that might be a good technique rather than charging right into the gap - I don't know. But if you are going to use that technique, it seems to me like you jam sideways into any blocker that comes thru the gap so as to plug the gap or, if the blocker keeps going, you want to be in the gap to meet the runner as he comes thru. I didn't see Biesel ever do that. And as I mentioned in my original post, at least in one play when he was tucked behind Wilfork, when the runner came thru the gap beside Wilfork, he never even MOVED to try to jam into the runner. You might remember that I mentioned that on one play, he actually went out his way and HOPPED in order not to hit the runner !! !! !! Figure that one out.
You commented that he was waaaaay underweight. He was listed at 238 and Bruschi is 247. That's only 9 pounds. Is that really thaaaaaat much underweight ?? I dunno.
Looking at what he does on a significant sample of plays is not exactly looking at everything he does in the most negative light. It's just assessing what he does.
My concern is that the Miami game was at the end of an entire season of coaching, practice sessions, and game reps. You would think that, getting a chance to get in some reps, that he would really be fired up to show his best. Even if you say the Miami game may not have been regarded as a serious game, surely the Jacksonville game was a PLAYOFF game. If you are not up for a playoff game, maybe you are never going to be an aggressive hitting linebacker - or even a hitting linebacker.
If there is any chance that you have recordings of the Miami and Jacksonville game, I think you might be really interested to go back and look at his plays in slo-mo. I think whatever observations you might make of his actual plays might be informative - I would be very interested to see what comments you might have on those plays.
Thanks for the thoughts.
