Win, Fail, or Meh? #5 (FOXSports 7 rounder)

[JackBauer]

Our lack of pass rushers and BB's relunctance to address this hole has almost become an annual running joke!

One could argue that he started to address it last offseason with the selections of Cunningham and Spikes. If he continues the process by selecting a DE and OLB in the 2011 draft, I doubt many of us will be complaining.

 

[IllegalContact]

One could argue that he started to address it last offseason with the selections of Cunningham and Spikes. If he continues the process by selecting a DE and OLB in the 2011 draft, I doubt many of us will be complaining.

spikes? he is strictly an inside guy.

that's like drafting a TE to be your deep threat

 

[MaineMan]

spikes? he is strictly an inside guy.

that's like drafting a TE to be your deep threat

Actually, in relation to Mayo, it's more like drafting a TE to run the right seam to take the safety off your deep threat on the left sideline. Spikes is there to plug a gap and funnel RBs toward Mayo. Seemed to work okay this season.

 

[MaineMan]

You are getting boring, repetitive and wrong. You are neglecting disagregation of individual abilities and efforts in your analysis. Let's back things out to a simpler context of baseball.

The Pittsburgh Pirates suck, you know that, I know that (I live 300 feet from the Squirrel Hill Tunnel and just bought my Bucs-Red Sox tickets this morning).

Using your logic, no contending team would ever want to bring over one or two specific players from the Pirates for a play-off push to improve their offense or to provide better defense or whatever because the Pirates suck, therefore all of their players must also suck.

However, let's take Jason Bay. He does not suck. He is a top tier player that for a long while was on the Bucs. When he got traded to the Red Sox he did not magically go from barely being able to catch a ball to being a legit All-Star --- he maintained his previous level of performance but happened to be on a much better team which his performance made better (counterfactual that Manny would still continue to be Manny...)

Some players on the Pirates suck, some players on the Pirates are just below MLB competent, others are MLB competent, and a few are legitimately above competent MLB players. Almost every team will have at least one player in each of these categories. The problem with the Pirates is that the ratio of suck to almost competent to compent to legitimately good to superior talent is skewed massively to the left, while the Red Sox, Rays, Yanks etc. have a talent distribution curve skewed to the right. However there are a few players on the Bucs that could help a contender despite the fact the Pirates suck.

The same applies to pretty much every NFL team.

If this is part of that DeMarcus Ware thing, I may be confused but I didn't think it was ever about whether Ware was good or not, only about whether his particular talents would help the Pats. IIRC, the one hypothesis was that a premier pass rusher, using Ware as an example, would help the Pats pass defense. Then the rebuttal was along the lines of, "Yes, Ware IS indeed a premier pass rusher, but he didn't help the Dallas pass defense much last year, now did he? So, maybe that doesn't help prove your hypothesis?"

So whether or not you agree that a premier pass-rusher would help the Pats pass defense, you COULD still agree that using Ware as an example doesn't help make that case and do so without coming close to implying that Ware is anything like a bad player, yes?

 

[Snake Eyes]

If this is part of that DeMarcus Ware thing, I may be confused but I didn't think it was ever about whether Ware was good or not, only about whether his particular talents would help the Pats. IIRC, the one hypothesis was that a premier pass rusher, using Ware as an example, would help the Pats pass defense. Then the rebuttal was along the lines of, "Yes, Ware IS indeed a premier pass rusher, but he didn't help the Dallas pass defense much last year, now did he? So, maybe that doesn't help prove your hypothesis?"

So whether or not you agree that a premier pass-rusher would help the Pats pass defense, you COULD still agree that using Ware as an example doesn't help make that case and do so without coming close to implying that Ware is anything like a bad player, yes?

How do you know if he helped the pass defense unless you know how the pass defense was without him?

Anyway, the real question is whether or not he would be an upgrade over TBC or Cunningham, and I think he'd be MUCH better than either one on their best day.

That being said, why wouldnt the defense be better if one of the players is now much better?

 

[dryheat44]

If this is part of that DeMarcus Ware thing, I may be confused but I didn't think it was ever about whether Ware was good or not, only about whether his particular talents would help the Pats. IIRC, the one hypothesis was that a premier pass rusher, using Ware as an example, would help the Pats pass defense. Then the rebuttal was along the lines of, "Yes, Ware IS indeed a premier pass rusher, but he didn't help the Dallas pass defense much last year, now did he? So, maybe that doesn't help prove your hypothesis?"

Logically, yes, that is a good way of putting the disagreement. However, it ignores the fact that Dallas was in the top third of pass defenses the previous 3 years. So either Ware used to help the defense, yet now he doesn't, or a lot of variables are at play, including the worst set of safeties in the NFL. To say that a proven pass rush linebacker wouldn't help this team takes a special set of blinders. I didn't choose Ware as an example for any reason other than he's known by NFL fans as a productive pass rusher and is the first one I thought of. I find it humorous to think that if I named a productive pass rusher that happened to be part of a good pass defense in 2010, or that if I made the post in January 2008, 2009, or 2010 instead of 2011, that my point would be seen as more valid by some.

Anyway, I'm done talking about it. I promise.

 

[JackBauer]

spikes? he is strictly an inside guy.

that's like drafting a TE to be your deep threat

I realize the concept of an interior pass rush is foreign to some.

 

[dryheat44]

I realize the concept of an interior pass rush is foreign to some.

Also funny because our best deep threat is probably a tight end.