Quote:I'm not going to do the amount of research it would take to seriously refute this, but I watched a lot of Bruce Smith and Reggie White and I didn't remember them moving much at all. In the two fairly brief videos I found (they could be seriously cherry picked, so I'm not saying it's ironclad), but Reggie White posted up at LE every single snap and a video of the career high 19 sacks in Bruce Smith's 1990 season 18 of them came at RE and ony 1 at LE. Based on my memory and the 15 minutes of cutups I will link below they were both exceedingly stationary compared to how pass rushers are used today. Lawrence Taylor was a LB so I'm not really sure he counts. You might be right about Charles Haley, I didn't watch a whole lot of him growing up and I didn't find any good cutups of his to watch either. If you are right about Haley then it was a significantly unique situation.  I think my point stands.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZitnUJziLM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtMYS6xlaRk

 

And yes multiple LT will always be drafted in the 1st round every...along with pretty much every position outside of running back and interior oline. As I showed in the other post, the results of those recent LT draft picks show that they were most likely not the right picks.  

Point of clarification is needed from me.  I did not mean to suggest those teams FREQUENTLY moved those players around.  As you pointed out, the bulk of their snaps took place at their home positions (i.e. Reggie White at LDE, Bruce Smith at RDE).  My intent was to show that the concept of moving the best pass rusher around was not unheard of at that time.  It was not my intent to suggest a high level of frequency on that point.  Actually, a better example than all of those I mentioned would be Howie Long.  But here is a clip of Bruce Smith rushing from LDE.  https://youtu.be/tuYxVgghk-k?t=1m54s

 

Here is Charles Haley from LDE in SB XXVII   https://youtu.be/GipjQJXex5Y?t=36s

 

Here is Reggie White rushing from inside...https://youtu.be/ahdEe_sUYPY?t=49s

 

Here is LT rushing from the middle.  Earlier, there is a part against the Rams where he appears to rush from the offensive right side or the defensive left side.  https://youtu.be/Zm1C1jtXOIs?t=1m18s

 

 

Having ceded that distinction, I think your larger point remains unpersuasive.  Over at least the same time period,effective defenses have always fielded strong pass rushers from the defensive left side whether LDE or LB.  Ed "Too Tall" Jones was an outstanding pass rusher from LDE for Dallas in the late 70s and 1980s.  The Gibbs era Skins offered Charles Mann at LDE opposite Dexter Manley in the 1980s and early 1990s.  The Browns had Clay Matthews at LOLB opposite Chip Banks for Cleveland.  The Eagles offered Reggie White.  By 1989, the Chiefs had Neil Smith at LDE to provide a balance to Derrick Thomas at ROLB.  The Giants drafted Michael Strahan and had him at LDE his entire career.  I know with the Steelers and Panthers, Kevin Greene rushed primarily from the LOLB spot.  The tacks played Kearse at LDE for the bulk of his time there.  Having a good to dominant pass rusher opposite the RT is not unique to this particular era.

 

As to your closing point, a drafted tackle proving to be a failure or bust is not the same as saying teams don't value LT as much as they did in the past.  It means the teams missed on the players in question.  Huge difference.

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