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Steve Spagnuolo hired as DC


kingseanjohn

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I don't get this "ILB is critical" discussion. Hitchens isn't going anywhere due to his contract, and he'll be the guy to man the middle - like it or not. There's a young guy behind him noone talks about, but who was the hype of last year's camp: Ben Niemann. And then there is Ragland on a cheap contract, who may well serve as a backup.

Looking outside I'm really excited to see what O'Daniel can do at DJ's old position on the weak side. Strong side: Houston, unless he's traded off (who'd take him with that contract?)

I have no clue what to make out of KPass, Speaks probably should return to DE (may be in front of Houston?)

I have a hard time to see dee Ford on the DL. I could imagine simply cutting Houston if no trade is available, take those 14 M$in cap savings and use them to franchise Ford. In any case, I see the Chiefs short one OLB, not ILB - unless they keep both Houston and Ford.

If they keep both I'd absolute focus on DBs, C and RB.

Depth at LB ... ok ... you should always draft.

Or (and I know, this comes out of left field) trade off Fisher in a cap saving move and draft a new guy there. Sooner or later you'll need a heck of money to extend Mahomes, Hill, and Jones.

 

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12 minutes ago, KC_Guy said:

I don't get this "ILB is critical" discussion. Hitchens isn't going anywhere due to his contract, and he'll be the guy to man the middle - like it or not. There's a young guy behind him noone talks about, but who was the hype of last year's camp: Ben Niemann. And then there is Ragland on a cheap contract, who may well serve as a backup.

I have ILB as my 3rd need. I don't believe in Hitchens being a long term solution. I thought Niemann would do well in the 3-4 but I don't know about the 4-3. Ragland, as we saw in Buffalo, is not a fit in the 4-3. I'm hoping we trade him for a mid or late round pick.

If someone like Bush or Wilson falls to us, I wouldn't be mad if we took them. They'd be a clear upgrade imo and on a much cheaper deal.

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22 minutes ago, KC_Guy said:

I don't get this "ILB is critical" discussion. Hitchens isn't going anywhere due to his contract, and he'll be the guy to man the middle - like it or not. There's a young guy behind him noone talks about, but who was the hype of last year's camp: Ben Niemann. And then there is Ragland on a cheap contract, who may well serve as a backup.

 

I consider Hitchens and O'Daniel to be locks at the moment. But we need a 3rd one playing between them and i don't trust Ragland to be that guy. I haven't seen him read the offense and after this season i'm sure he's not processing runs fast enough to effectively shoot gaps and stop the run, so he's not a guy you want to be playing in our defense if you want to improve the defense. Since he's rather cheap i'm fine to keep him for depth reasons, but i'm absolutely concinved that we need a quality guy there who can do all those things, which ultimately improves our run defense noticeably. I don't think Niemann can be that guy either. He's a good depth guy, through.

Basically that's the reason why i have the MLB position as the top need.

I'm not sure what to make of Ford in a 4-3 defense. I think we should only invest in him if we want to play him as DE, through it remains to be seen if he can play that position. I wouldn't give him a longterm contract for any other position. I guess we need to franchise tag him to see where he can fit in during the year to make a decision next year.

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1 hour ago, Edge said:

I consider Hitchens and O'Daniel to be locks at the moment. But we need a 3rd one playing between them and i don't trust Ragland to be that guy. I haven't seen him read the offense and after this season i'm sure he's not processing runs fast enough to effectively shoot gaps and stop the run, so he's not a guy you want to be playing in our defense if you want to improve the defense. Since he's rather cheap i'm fine to keep him for depth reasons, but i'm absolutely concinved that we need a quality guy there who can do all those things, which ultimately improves our run defense noticeably. I don't think Niemann can be that guy either. He's a good depth guy, through.

Basically that's the reason why i have the MLB position as the top need.

I'm not sure what to make of Ford in a 4-3 defense. I think we should only invest in him if we want to play him as DE, through it remains to be seen if he can play that position. I wouldn't give him a longterm contract for any other position. I guess we need to franchise tag him to see where he can fit in during the year to make a decision next year.

I consider Hitchens a lock for MLB, as that is what he played for the Cowboys. Can't imagine him a SLB at all.

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5 minutes ago, KC_Guy said:

I consider Hitchens a lock for MLB, as that is what he played for the Cowboys. Can't imagine him a SLB at all.

Spags likes his Sam to be able to slide down to LE on 3rd down also.  

MLB is his best fit, although I would still like to see a premium placed on putting competition behind him.

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I don't think we see nearly as much personnel change on the front 7 as some are expecting. I see a lot of MLB and DL as needs, and I actually don't think we see much personnel change at either spot. Hitchens was at his best at 4-3 MLB for Dallas. He does not have the range to play WLB, and that's DOD's best fit, and he doesn't have the strength or pass rush chops to do what Spags will likely want at SLB, so he'll be our MLB. Contract isn't escapable, I don't think they write him off after one year, so I think he's a lock at MLB next year, for better or worse.

I've also seen a lot of people saying they can't see Dee Ford in a 4-3. Really, we already have. Most of our snaps under Sutton were always in a 2-4-5. It's part of why we got gashed in the run game. I think Spags will play more base defense than Sutton, but in this league you have to go nickel a lot. Our nickel will be 4-2-5, which is basically identical in all but name. The role of DE in that 4-2-5 set will be the exact same as what Ford was already doing most of the time. He is undersized and not the best run defender, but that won't hurt anymore in those sets in a 4-2 than it did in a 2-4. Now we may try to add at DE if we choose not to retain Ford. But if we do retain Ford, he'll just likely get rotated in and out more often than he did under Sutton. We'll have something of a heavy set, with something like Speaks-Jones-Nnadi-Kpass on the DL, maybe Houston at DE or SLB there, and then we'll have a lighter set where we pull off Nnadi, kick someone like Speaks inside, and then roll with Houston and Ford at DE if they're both retained. Spags did a lot of moving guys around on the DL for the Giants to get his best run defenders on the field when needed, and his best pass rushers on the field when needed. The question does become if Ford is worth the money if he isn't playing 90% of the snaps, but Ford would absolutely have a home in the 4-3. Hell, he played 4-3 in college anyway. I won't say for sure that we keep Ford and Houston. But I won't be surprised or upset if we do.

And if we do keep both for next year, I kind of think our DL rotation is more or less set. You'd have a Speaks, Kpass, Houston, Ford rotation at DE. You'd have Williams and Nnadi as heavier interior guys, Jones as your pass rusher with some DEs likely helping out inside on passing downs. So you maybe have room for another DT. But I don't think we add someone substantial unless we lose someone substantial, and I honestly believe Houston and Ford stay next year. Neither would be easy guys to replace, even with their limitations.

The big needed additions for me on defense are we need an OLB and a S. I don't think you move Houston off the ball at this point in his career, and he definitely has the strength and ability in containment and on run D to play 4-3 DE full-time. He's light, but powerful. So I don't see anyone fitting in at SLB. We need a better run defender at LB. I don't think Ragland has it in him to be anything but a decent thumper in a very limited role in a 3-4 defense. Neither Neimann nor DOD have the weight, so they'll be the coverage guys. So we need an OLB. And I think we need at least 1 S. Maybe 2. Can't trust Berry at this stage. Sorensen seems like the coach's favorite type that probably falls out of favor in a defensive regime change. Watts and Lucas are raw maybes. So I think you want to add at least one guy there.

And this could all change if we flip Ford or Houston. Or cut Houston. Or just move on from Ford. But I think those will be roster decisions made by Hunt and Reid at that stage, since Spags won't have really worked with any of these guys by the time we need to make a choice on Ford especially. So I think they're retained at least for a year, and DL doesn't wind up being a priority.

Oh, and I've been burned before by young CBs flashing late in the season, but CB is a low priority to me. I think Ward, Nelson, Fuller would be fine. I think the CBs took a lot of heat for the failures of the scheme and the safety play. They were asked to man up regardless of opposition, talent, etc., with S help that was too slow to react and run to help them over the top. I swear I saw a stat at one point that Nelson was by far the most targeted CB on go routes in the league, but he allowed like a 30% completion on them or something. But teams kept going at it because the S was never there and sometimes you get lucky.

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18 minutes ago, Jakuvious said:

I think Ward, Nelson, Fuller would be fine.

Mostly agree with you. However, Houston as a 4-3 DE? Need to see that.

Nelson btw will be a free agent. Notsure how much he'll command ... but there are other (better?) options out there.

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6 minutes ago, KC_Guy said:

Mostly agree with you. However, Houston as a 4-3 DE? Need to see that.

Nelson btw will be a free agent. Notsure how much he'll command ... but there are other (better?) options out there.

Same thing as Ford, his role has been that of a 4-3 DE for the most part over the years. Hell, we've all complained every time they dropped him in coverage. We've basically always wanted him to play like a 4-3 DE.

I don't think Nelson commands enough for us not to match it. Maybe a little more than what the Browns gave Terrance Mitchell.

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5 hours ago, Jakuvious said:

The big needed additions for me on defense are we need an OLB and a S.

Safeties are key to me. We need 2. Chiefs were 1 of 2 teams giving up 400+yds/gm. A new SS will help with tackling and run defense. A new FS will reduce those huge chunks we've given up over-the-top. Berry? He's older and hobbled and going to surgery again. Sorensen? Ha He's never been able to tackle and KC must improve  here. Murray, Lucas  can't handle the job as I see it.

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5 hours ago, Jakuvious said:

Same thing as Ford, his role has been that of a 4-3 DE for the most part over the years. Hell, we've all complained every time they dropped him in coverage. We've basically always wanted him to play like a 4-3 DE.

I don't think Nelson commands enough for us not to match it. Maybe a little more than what the Browns gave Terrance Mitchell.

I’ll agree with you in that Ford can succeed at DE in a 3-4.

My concern would still be run D.  IMO you can only keep one of Jones and Ford,  not just because of the money, but also neither are very good run stoppers .  DOD (or who ever plays WOLB would be swallowed up by blockers continuously).  Slightly different scheme, same problem on the right side.   

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I have no problem moving Houston off the line of scrimmage. He's the guy that did that this year. In the base defense, I think Speaks takes the other DE. So the DL is Speaks-Nnadi-Jones-Ford and LB is Houston-Hitchens-DoD. Rush package same as this year.

The biggest improvement is usually between rookie and 2nd year. Speaks, Nnadi, and DoD should be much better, so we should not be drafting those positions. Houston and Hitchens are a different story. Draft with an eye to replacing them in 2020 or 2021. 

The secondary is the tricky part. Coverage responsibilities and the scheme will be different. We should be drafting DB every year as a basic principle. Move the priority up this year. A plug-and-play CB would make a lot of other things easier. 

J

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On 1/30/2019 at 9:15 PM, samsel23 said:

I’ll agree with you in that Ford can succeed at DE in a 3-4.

My concern would still be run D.  IMO you can only keep one of Jones and Ford,  not just because of the money, but also neither are very good run stoppers .  DOD (or who ever plays WOLB would be swallowed up by blockers continuously).  Slightly different scheme, same problem on the right side.   

Imagine DOD-Ford-Jones on one side. Brutal run defense

I think(pray) we only see that allignment on obvious passing downs. Teams are still gonna check down to it for big gains.

Why the SS is very important to this scheme. Will Berry get the surgery already? He once was tailormade for this scheme

Ive heard Spags does a lot of switching(Justin Tuck played every position on defense lol) so we could see Houston at LEO, Ford at SLB more than we think.

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