Quote:While I was neither strongly in favor or against him pre-draft, I agree completely with the closing sentiments. 

 

I most certainly would support stocking up on edge rushers in an almost defense exclusive draft that included DTs LBs and at least one safety.

I kind'a roll this way too, but I'm thinking that beadles days here are numbered and we're gonna need another guard. I'm not sure if it would be wise to put a rookie guard next to joeckel at this point though. Otherwise, I think I'd also go all defense in the draft. We're doing the best we can with clem, but lets face it; the dude is getting a little long in the tooth for the game. And branch hasn't contributed much the whole time he's been here. Poz is clearly playing beyond expectations, I think; but he too is getting on. I don't know what to think of alualu.

 

The one thing I am convinced of though is that a good part of our defensive 'woe' has to do with not having the right people to effectively implement gus's defensive scheme. Zone works... IF you can effectively get pressure on the quarterback and do it enough to cause them to get 'happy feet'. As it is, most of the time I get the impression that opponent quarterbacks have way too much time to select their targets. We just don't get to them enough to take the pressure off the secondary and no secondary is going to last forever against even an average quarterback if they have all day to throw the ball.

 

Which I guess brings us full circle since rushing the passer was what fowler was drafted for. I've read the commentary on here that acl's are not as debilitating as they once were; and I'm hoping that those opinions are right. I still think though that until we actually know what we've got with fowler, we should proceed as if we got nothing with fowler, much like 'pirkster' suggested. We do know that fowler will be rusty after being out of football for a full year. Lets score another high value pass rusher regardless though and put them on either side; maybe we could have a good pass rushing tandem as well as a good receiving tandem!

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