Quote:"Relying solely on a player who hasn't played his first NFL snap and coming off injury to solve out LEO issue is simply ridiculous."

 

Even if you could guarantee that Fowler will be 100% to re injury form this fall, and even if you could guarantee he would be a good pass rusher at the NFL level, it would still make a ton of sense to stock up on edge rushers in the next draft.

 

We need quality starters (plural) and depth to rush the passer effectively.  Outside of the Miami game, Odrick hasn't provided much pass rush from LDE, and neither has Alualu.  Clemons is gone after this year, as is Branch, and Ryan Davis is underutilized and when he IS used, he is used inside. 

 

Yeah I definitely agree with these sentiments. To do so, would be repeating the same mistakes we made last season...when our defense "relied" on the addition of a #3 pick at LEO, and the return of Marks to provide pass rush.

 

As we saw, Marks was slow to come back and Fowler got injured. While the timeline for Fowler is further ahead of Marks, its still not a good idea to just rely on those two guys again...

 

1) Fowler is coming back from an ACL

2) Pass rushers don't tend to make great impact their 1st year (unless they are truly special, but even guys like Watt and JPP didn't blow up until year 2)

3) Clem, Branch are likely gone

 

Add all of those things up and it only makes sense that we continue to add to our d-line, especially guys who can affect the passer and force teams to double.

---