Is Byrd Replaceable?

[boyst]

Awesome......just what I wanted. Thanks greatly.

 

My take from that is......in the system we use, Byrd would be well worth the money to re-sign as replacing such an important cog would be very difficult to achieve.

conversely, Whitner might actually!ly be a very good fit. He struggled with that Tampa2 crap, but in this he should do fine. As long as he doesn't have to back pedal and could play 8-12 yards off the LOS without a liability in the triangle, as I call it. Aka the ILB and DT. At the time our DTs were space eating pluggers, or well, supposed to be. They didn't have it, we didn't have fat Pat or big Ted. We had quick Kyle Williams and whoever else was used, Dwan Edwards, Carrington and Dareus. All guys with a quick first step and the power to beat the OL but not the sheer strength to hold them. Now they are gap filling beat the rush DT's who rely on Alonso scraping between the DT's to clean up. As seen numerous times this season, it can go very bad if Alonso messes up. AWilliams is a good tackler but take an RB with 20 yards of steam and its not going to be easy, remember that RB gets 5 yards behind the LOS, too. So if the SS can successfully step up to fill he is at best within 4 to 5 yards before that RB can cut. By this time our OLBs can conervge on the ball, as our DEs and CBs are already out of the play on an inside rush.

 

What we are seeing happen in recent games is exposing Alonso for his aggression to over pursue and over power. He leaves lanes open behind him even when he gets to his assignment. The DTs cannot simply fill that space, although Branch has done a wonderful job at blobbing the Wilfork...hmm that sounds good. But Branch creates a mass that fills holes and most RBs don't get the needed time to avoid it. KWilliams, however has been pushed around, outside and even back a few times on double teams creating cutback lanes. When he is on the weak side its all we can do to hope Lawson ain't far and there is more then an answer of Leonhard to make then tackle. This exact play happened on a big run by Atl, it may have been the first big TD.

 

If you're wondering about the DE's well, me too. We have two of the best DEs in the league and Mario is one of them. The other is whoever is also playing opposite side and benefitting. These two DEs, regardless who collapse the pocket by going right where the passer will be and have great success on the bullrush. Dareus at DE has done this phenomolly several times. But when you look at the pocket coming down like it does against our DL we see a lot of maybes. A delayed handoff or dump off up the middle gets us because it ends up being 1on1 SS vs dumpoff. We see draws, play action and quick screens that make our DL a nonfactor

 

Against NO Graham Brock free several times letting the blocker go by, and I am likely mistaken but an unknowing Dareus @DE didn't even put a hand on him and allowed for a short seam pass for a big gain on a 3rd. It happened against Miami and it happened against Cleveland also