Quack's Inflammatory Mock Offseason (WALLOFTEXTWARNING)

I have to run on what I'm shown. If I assume everyone on here is a football expert then I appear to be talking over people's heads. If I make things basic then I appear to be talking down to people. There's no winning. Nothing that applies to everyone. If you've got the knowledge then you're in the minority and you clearly know it and should understand this problem well.

You can't honestly be advocating for someone who would be a serious liability requiring a complete change of scheme - crippling the performances of many other players on the defense by forcing them out of their own positions - on at least half of their snaps while, at the same time, criticizing someone who can only play the majority of their snaps at an elite level while being a liability on a minute few. It is absurd and demonstrates either (a) a lack of knowledge or (b) an insistence on belief over reality. Even if Ansah flops on the ground and starts doing the worm when dropped into coverage, he is better than Jordan or Mingo because he plays the run very well.

The choice is this:

1. Half the plays (run plays) cause an issue serious enough to require universal adjustment of scheme to a single player, or
2. a small portion (dropping your best pass rusher back into coverage) of the other half (pass plays) being a serious but by no means disastrous match-up consideration (you give him less ground to cover in his zone or teach him to just get depth, forget about covering, and to just make the tackle afterwards)

You're choosing the former rather than the latter?

That's a truism. Every player is more effective in some fronts than others.

It's true he plays everywhere (standing up from any spot included) but he mostly plays with his hand in the dirt.

You're still not giving a reason.

Yes he can. Just like Ware, Suggs, Matthews, Hali, so on, and so forth. Now it's not fun finding these statistics but I'll throw Clay Matthews out here, 2011 not 2012 because I (a) can't find his 2012 pass rush count and (b) he plays only 67.5% of snaps in 2012 compared with 87% in 2011 and I want to give you every single benefit of the doubt that I can.

Teams passed against the Packers 637 times in 2011. They were 32nd in the league in pass defense in 2011 and teams loved to pass on them for that reason. Matthews rushed the passer on 453 of those passes. If you assume every team the Packers played only passed with Matthews on the field then he rushed the passer 71% of the time. He's in their base defense though, and only comes out for rotational purposes. Remember that first link? He was in on 1,028 defensive snaps. That being 87% of total snaps, we can drop that 637 to 554 to get an 82% of pass rushing snaps that he rushes the passer.

This leaves (rounded) 100 snaps a season, or 6.25 snaps per game average, that he is in coverage. Oh my. Compared with the 474 run defending snaps, or 29.625 (29 & 5/8) snaps per game. So does Green Bay want Clay Matthews to be a pro coverage linebacker for those six measly snaps a game or do they want him to be a run stuffer for those twenty nine? You tell me.

How? You figure out how to schematically remove someone just because you know they're rushing and you just forced every team to adopt a dual nose tackle roaming linebacker cloud approach to defense and will be awarded any coaching job you want.

82% on a team that got passed on a historic amount of times is not too shabby. Maybe we shouldn't be aiming for 100% and should be thinking in realistic terms instead of in absolutes while ignoring overwhelming contrary evidence?

The only full time players are your #1 CB, your safeties, your OLine, and your QB. Everyone else comes out at some point.

This is a legitimate concern. Let's forget the rest. People like to say he's "raw" like they call white skill position players "scrappy" and "gym rats" and "blue collar". How about this:

You're right, professional coaches are wrong, he's raw.

He's a dominant player with limited experience. If he had started half a season then you say "Why not the first half?" but he had to build up from a lean sprinting body to a bulky defensive lineman body so it's pretty damn understandable why it took him time to get into the game. If something doesn't add up then be worried by all means. But the kid checks out. There are legitimate reasons for everything happening how it happened..

 

I took a few (2-3) weeks to download and watch film and write a database of personal scouting reports (what I had written) on prospects that I felt were worth a draft pick that they were either valued at or below. I skimmed games, noting players who stood out, researched what draftniks projected them to, and compared. If I saw the player as worse than their perception then I didn't touch them because I'd expect them to not be available even if they were good or great. If they seemed spot on or undervalued, I watched as much as I could find on them and if there were "personality issues" I would read as much as I could to figure out whether it was puritanical overreaction, clash of personalities, misunderstanding, or legitimate.

The article itself involved researching other team needs through articles and fan forum opinions and took another week. My biggest regret is that I didn't take notes on team needs and I now end up confusing a few teams' leanings. If I want to write a comprehensive defense of Milliner being available at 9 for the NYJ-DEN trade to happen, for example, I'd have to go through the top 8 teams again.

Forget the reports. Come to your own conclusions just by watching. How does he bend (ankles, knees, hips)? Where are his shoulders in regards to his feet? How is his initial reaction to plays? Does he swim towards plays in the other direction? Does he get too much depth on outside rushes, washing out? What does he do against the run? Is he supposed to occupy blocks? Supposed to shed? Look at what it looks like he's responsible for (what other people leave him to do) and what he accomplishes based off of that. You'll come away blown away.

I'm PMing you the games you can find on youtube, if anyone else wants them they can PM me too. I've found that posting links publicly leads to their getting DMCAd so I'd rather that not happen. The only games missing are Weber State, Georgia Tech, Hawaii, and Idaho, all blowouts in BYUs favor.

Medical concern drops are one of those unpredictable things though. NFL FOs overreact to so much stupid shit and underreact to red flags with fireworks attached. I strongly doubt he makes it to the second. Not impossible, but I strongly doubt it.