When will we get an SLB?

[pwny]

I got thinking about this last night, and I can’t really remember when the last time we had a natural SLB was.

Jack is more of a WLB, maybe able to play MLB, but he doesn’t have the playstyle of a typical SLB.

2015-16: Skuta was more of a tweener

2014: Dakota Watson was... I don’t even know

2013-14: Geno Hayes was a Will. 

2012: Russell Allen played Will and they moved Daryl Smith to SLB. 

2011: Clint Session was a natural SLB, but he played like 10 games for us. And the backups we had weren’t SLBs.

2006-2010: Clint Ingram, Justin Durant and Daryl Smith were all best suited for WLB imo.

We really haven’t had that guy who can hit the point of attack, shed blockers, tie up someone on the OL, or funnel runners to our playmakers in at least 12 years, and I’m blanking on who we had before that. Daryl was good enough at everything that you could play him anywhere and he would find success, so when he played SLB for us, it wasn’t a bad thing. But he clearly was world class in the traditional Will role as well as when he played MLB for us, and just in that “really good, but not elite” in the SLB role.

So my question is multi-part.

1. Is this not having a traditional SLB thing a problem across the league? I honestly don’t know.

2.  Can a team build a truly successful defense without one? Our defenses have all been bad since we got rid of the only guy who could play the role, and they've always had trouble with handling things in the middle of the field since. Are these two correlated?

3. If a team cannot find that success without the guy to handle that role effectively, why does this team refuse to spend the assets to find someone who can fill the role?

4. If a team can find that success without the guy to handle the role, what does the third LB need to do in that defense? Is our defense prepared to use our third LB in that way? Do we have a third LB who can play that role.

[Tugboat]

I'm not really sure why this team seems allergic to the position.  It is a spot that requires a pretty sought after athlete "type".  So the obvious fits are probably going to come at a relative premium.  Which i think can be tougher to stomach because it's also a spot that often comes off the field for a lot of sub package snaps.  So you're not necessarily getting a "full time starter" even if they're very very good.  But there are gems to be found, and bargains to be had now and then.

Also doesn't help that this team spent the last bunch of years goofing around trying to plug basically very bad 3-4 OLBers into that spot and calling it silly things.    Of course, if they want to continue with the hybrid front business and be a bit flexible, you can make that work.  See teams like Atlanta and Oakland (or Denver previously) among others who make snaps there for essentially 34 Rush LBers with tremendous success for them, kicking them down to the line as needed, making them essentially "full time starters" by splitting across positions.  But they have to be actually good for it to work well.

It's been suggested plenty before, but it seems like something they could at least look at with Dante Fowler Jr.  He's not really living up to his draft pedigree as a straight up DE.  Though his ability to hold up in any sort of even basic coverage drops seems problematic.  And trying to put even more "learning" on his plate seems like a problem as well.

 

I think you can build a solid defense without a stud there.  But it can be a real impact position if you do get a stud there, and i like impact.  I'd really like to see them do something about it.

 

The current ailment though, seems like it has to do with a lack of planning for "fit" more than anything else.  Just drafting the shiniest toy in Myles Jack because "value" too good to pass up in a vacuum.  Win the Draft.  But now stuck trying to cobble together 2 WLBs, and a thumper MLB only type into a coherent LBer corps.  Which doesn't work.  Seems pretty clear they thought it would somehow, and didn't bother to address the SLB based on that assumption.  So they want to get all their toys on the field, but it's an awkward misfit that doesn't really seem to work...and they had no apparent backup plan for if it didn't work.  It's a bit of a different problem from some of the past years where they've at least been apparently trying to address the spot (Skuta, Dekoda, OTTO, etc.).