I.M. Fletcher
2nd Team Getting Their First Start
- Joined
- Jun 20, 2012
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It is surprising to see how Pats fans who admire and observe BB closely still covet splashy EDGE guys. I seriously doubt BB would ever take Garrett or any edge guy at a high 1rd pick let alone #1-3.
Take a franchise QB or trade down - that would happen most of the time. We don't have much of the pattern of course..
Re. Garrett: he was basically non existent against Alabama. Cam Robinson owned him mostly 1-1. OJ Howard helped at times but also owned him 1-1 (and moved the chains as well).
Not that we don't know it from Pats games but here is a nice film on how the extraordinary edge player becomes virtually a non factor.
(There is a nice slow motion of Robinson owning Garrett at 4:38. It happened all day)
As commentator puts it nicely about Garrett “ he has one job and he does it well.“ The problem is one job is not too difficult to take away esp. if you take so much cap space that you can't have good company around you.
On the other hand its not easy to take away the job from QB, OL, versatile DL, CB, S, impact LB, TE.
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Since taking over BB drafted only one pure edge guy in the first 2 rounds (in 17 drafts!) - Chandler Jones at #21 and while being productive (and spectacular) rusher we know how his story here ended . because his only job (esp. setting the edge) was to easily taken away.
He did draft a couple of excellent DL rushers very high - Seymour at #6 and even traded up for Warren at #13 (and recently Easley) but this are versatile 300lb guys with more than one use (rush, stuff, push..).
Here's what he took in those 17 drafts in first two rounds?
10 - DB
7 - DT/DL
5 - LB
4 - WR
3 - TE
3 - OT
2 - IOL
2 - RB
1 - QB
Of course this were mostly not high picks and its always about personalities as well but this is a long enough record to give us some clue.
So if he would actually use such a high pick (id guess he would trade down) I seriously doubt it would be on any pure edge guy. Its just not economical. He can win with Ninkovich's, Long's, Flower's etc. as well.
If he had to use it Id bet on Allen, Solomon Thomas, Hooker or Foster, possibly even Robinson, OJ Howard, Fournette, Peppers or one of the top CBs.
I am not doing this post justice by only making a small comment, but one thing to note about the Bama game, they ran away from him the entire day. Literally. Every play went over the right guard or tackle. Robinson did handle him in passing situations, but the Bama offense was t really set up for long developing plays anyways.
You would love to see more splash plays, but that looked like a gameplan to not let the other teams best player beat you.
I do agree with the rest of your sentiments. It is difficult to know what BB would value higher and where he considers to be the best cost effectiveness earlier in the draft. We have just had so few drafts to build much of a relevant understanding.