Steelers release LB Myles Jack

[Soko]

1 hour ago, Teen Girl Squad said:

100% He was billed as the second coming of Kuechly/Willis but with injury issues but he was never that guy. Doesn't have the elite instincts/football IQ. At this point of his career, he's replacement level. Much like Clowney, its kind of nuts how much pre-draft evals carry forward deep into player's careers, even overshadowing on field production.

Eh, I dunno about that. Never fit as the prototypical MLB that those guys were, most people saw him as an ultimate chess piece, though. Dude had the long term health red flag to boot. 

He had some good years in Jacksonville, not like he lived completely off name value.

[43M]

2 hours ago, sdrawkcab321 said:

I wonder if he’ll be back. He had a big cap number this year so they probably didn’t want to pay that. Might take a lower number. 

There was a stat going around about how ineffective our ILBs were last year, and it was pretty ugly.    They are cleaning house.    I dont expect huge things this year either, but Im glad they are at least trying to make changes at a very weak position.

Jack can be decent on a team with a good front 7 and good complimentary LBs.    With Devin Bush and a merely decent DL, he looked pedestrian.    

[Tugboat]

5 hours ago, Teen Girl Squad said:

100% He was billed as the second coming of Kuechly/Willis but with injury issues but he was never that guy. Doesn't have the elite instincts/football IQ. At this point of his career, he's replacement level. Much like Clowney, its kind of nuts how much pre-draft evals carry forward deep into player's careers, even overshadowing on field production.

Yeah.  He has good movement tools, but he just doesn't read the play well enough to have ever been an impact LBer.  He's allergic to using his speed to play downhill and doesn't have great feel for space in coverage either.  He can pile up decent tackle numbers if you can put him in the right "protected" situation that can keep him clean and let him drag guys down from behind...but he just doesn't ever identify and meet plays in the backfield or even in the hole.  I swear if you put together a reel of all his career tackles...90% of them would just be dragging a guy down by the ankles from behind, or piling on to a guy that's already effectively tackled.

 

Even when he was having his "big years" with the Jaguars, he really frustrated me to watch.  He was never the guy he was billed as.  Posluszny and Telvin Smith both had stretches where they were truly impact LBers.  Myles Jack was just never anything like that.

 

4 hours ago, AFlaccoSeagulls said:

He never seemed like an AFC North player. Just seems soft and whatever. Doesn't fit the Steelers identity for what they want at ILB.

This is the other thing with Jack.  He's catastrophically soft.  He will run a circuitous three mile loop around just to avoid having to stack and shed a blocker.  Has no violence or physicality in his game.  His tackles are always just ankle biting after the guy has run by him.  He's always wanted to play like a "finesse linebacker", which isn't really a thing.  At least, not if you want to be an impact player at the position.  And especially if you don't read the play well enough to find efficient routes to the play.

[Soko]

2 hours ago, Tugboat said:

This is the other thing with Jack.  He's catastrophically soft.  He will run a circuitous three mile loop around just to avoid having to stack and shed a blocker.  Has no violence or physicality in his game.  His tackles are always just ankle biting after the guy has run by him.  He's always wanted to play like a "finesse linebacker", which isn't really a thing.  At least, not if you want to be an impact player at the position.  And especially if you don't read the play well enough to find efficient routes to the play.

This is a common criticism of many of those super athletic LBers, the “so athletic he even played safety at one point” type guys. They often lack instincts for the position, which is debatably one of the most important traits for a LBer IMO. They can billed as these freaks (or in Isaiah Simmons’ case, a “TE eraser”), but they often aren’t physical/instinctive enough to play LBer and also not good enough in coverage to really justify being a safety. It’s rare these guys work out to the extent that they get projected as. 

Jamie Collins was basically this guy but ended up being a good player for a few years. I’d say Peppers has a little bit of that in him too and hasn’t really capitalized on it. Simmons is the obvious bust. Hard to predict these guys.

[BetterCallSaul]

1 hour ago, Yin-Yang said:

This is a common criticism of many of those super athletic LBers, the “so athletic he even played safety at one point” type guys. They often lack instincts for the position, which is debatably one of the most important traits for a LBer IMO. They can billed as these freaks (or in Isaiah Simmons’ case, a “TE eraser”), but they often aren’t physical/instinctive enough to play LBer and also not good enough in coverage to really justify being a safety. It’s rare these guys work out to the extent that they get projected as. 

Jamie Collins was basically this guy but ended up being a good player for a few years. I’d say Peppers has a little bit of that in him too and hasn’t really capitalized on it. Simmons is the obvious bust. Hard to predict these guys.

Knew Simmons was gonna be a bust. People kept labeling him a stud because he was so versatile. Doing a little bit of everything decently and inconsistently doesn’t mean you’re gonna be great.

I’d like to think I see things in LBs. I’ve been coaching that position for years now & can tell you it’s about your ability to react to a blocking scheme with immediacy, not about how fast or big you are. These idiot LBs that are athletes get pinned on down blocks almost every freaking play. No1 knows how to scrape and gap exchange to power blocking schemes. It’s why the NFL had the league-wide, highest YPC ever this past season for RBs. You play these athletes for pass coverage, but these dudes couldn’t fit to the run if their lives depended on it.

It’s why I’m still high on Sewell. He reads very well and flows fast on blocking schemes. I know he’s not agile in pass coverage and can’t match athletes in the NFL. But he will be excellent at fitting runs & forcing teams into passing situations. And he’s just fine as a spot dropper. Guys like Trenton Simpson and Drew Sanders are gonna go 1st, but they don’t do the little things that great LBs do vs the run.

Myles Jack was always atrocious against the run unless he was a “hipped out” WLB not accounted for in the blocking scheme. 

[Tugboat]

4 hours ago, Yin-Yang said:

This is a common criticism of many of those super athletic LBers, the “so athletic he even played safety at one point” type guys. They often lack instincts for the position, which is debatably one of the most important traits for a LBer IMO. They can billed as these freaks (or in Isaiah Simmons’ case, a “TE eraser”), but they often aren’t physical/instinctive enough to play LBer and also not good enough in coverage to really justify being a safety. It’s rare these guys work out to the extent that they get projected as. 

Jamie Collins was basically this guy but ended up being a good player for a few years. I’d say Peppers has a little bit of that in him too and hasn’t really capitalized on it. Simmons is the obvious bust. Hard to predict these guys.

 

I'd say the thing that temporarily "saved" Jamie Collins was that in addition to his athleticism, he genuinely did have some physicality to him.  He had that willingness to really physically battle through things and when he made contact, he made it with authority.

 

The problem with him was that he was only ever able to show that in a very specific scheme that accounted for his limitations in reading the play as a traditional linebacker.  Basically just put him in position to violently attack and hope for the best.  But Bill was only able to make that work with Collins because he did have that willingness in his game.

 

Jack never did.  Most of those other guys never did.

 

2 hours ago, BetterCallSaul said:

Knew Simmons was gonna be a bust. People kept labeling him a stud because he was so versatile. Doing a little bit of everything decently and inconsistently doesn’t mean you’re gonna be great.

I’d like to think I see things in LBs. I’ve been coaching that position for years now & can tell you it’s about your ability to react to a blocking scheme with immediacy, not about how fast or big you are. These idiot LBs that are athletes get pinned on down blocks almost every freaking play. No1 knows how to scrape and gap exchange to power blocking schemes. It’s why the NFL had the league-wide, highest YPC ever this past season for RBs. You play these athletes for pass coverage, but these dudes couldn’t fit to the run if their lives depended on it.

It’s why I’m still high on Sewell. He reads very well and flows fast on blocking schemes. I know he’s not agile in pass coverage and can’t match athletes in the NFL. But he will be excellent at fitting runs & forcing teams into passing situations. And he’s just fine as a spot dropper. Guys like Trenton Simpson and Drew Sanders are gonna go 1st, but they don’t do the little things that great LBs do vs the run.

Myles Jack was always atrocious against the run unless he was a “hipped out” WLB not accounted for in the blocking scheme. 

 

I think a part of it is the "power struggle" between offense and defense.  But the reality is...it's an "offensive-oriented league" right now.  It's hard to find "chess pieces" to counter other "chess pieces" on the offensive side of the ball.  You just have to do it schematically.  Can't rely on defensive "specialists" to win that battle against ever more creative uses of uniquely skilled offensive players.

Rather than trying to find a Swiss Army Knife defensive player...you're probably better finding really good dedicated tools for each job, and coaching them to work together like a single unit.

 

I just don't see how you can coach a LBer to do "everything" when that immediacy and decisiveness is so critical to their function.  It's just not realistic.

[BetterCallSaul]

@Tugboat yeah I hate the idea that it’s great to move these guys all over the place. Run fits are hard enough as it is. Having a bunch of moving pieces and parts…having a guy play FS on one snap & then SLB the next & then MLB the next is not helpful. I would much rather rigid fits with the front 7. Play with the secondary a little bit, but it boggles my mind how our short, slow, white HS kids are 10x better at fitting/stopping the run & pass than the guys in the NFL. I know the offensive talent is 300x better, but conceptually, I find myself watching the real nitty gritty X’s & O’s wondering how TF teams expect to stop the run with 1 linebacker and wide 9’s against a multiple TE set. It’s insane to me.

And yeah I think Jamie Collins worked better because he was a SAM/STAR linebacker. Those guys are typically just additional edge support, alongside the strong side DE. He also played on some fantastically coached defenses, who valued playing multiple LBs. He did freelance a lot, but to your point, he was a violent player. 

[Hunter2_1]

The hype this guy got. Then he fell so far in the draft compared to what we all expected. Was this only because of the injury, or did coaches just know he was soft? 
 

A lot of people here had him in top 15 overall

Edited March 17, 2023 by Hunter2_1

[Hunter2_1]

Yeah these “finesse” linebackers….they should be a myth.

linebackers needs brutality, controlled psychotic tendencies. They need to take on the largest humans on earth and get them the f out of their way, so they can make a living. 
 

Jack don’t have it 

[Hunter2_1]

19 hours ago, BetterCallSaul said:

Knew Simmons was gonna be a bust. People kept labeling him a stud because he was so versatile. Doing a little bit of everything decently and inconsistently doesn’t mean you’re gonna be great.

I’d like to think I see things in LBs. I’ve been coaching that position for years now & can tell you it’s about your ability to react to a blocking scheme with immediacy, not about how fast or big you are. These idiot LBs that are athletes get pinned on down blocks almost every freaking play. No1 knows how to scrape and gap exchange to power blocking schemes. It’s why the NFL had the league-wide, highest YPC ever this past season for RBs. You play these athletes for pass coverage, but these dudes couldn’t fit to the run if their lives depended on it.

It’s why I’m still high on Sewell. He reads very well and flows fast on blocking schemes. I know he’s not agile in pass coverage and can’t match athletes in the NFL. But he will be excellent at fitting runs & forcing teams into passing situations. And he’s just fine as a spot dropper. Guys like Trenton Simpson and Drew Sanders are gonna go 1st, but they don’t do the little things that great LBs do vs the run.

Myles Jack was always atrocious against the run unless he was a “hipped out” WLB not accounted for in the blocking scheme. 

Interested as to your opinion on Drew Sanders and Jack Campbell?

 

edit; I’ve just seen your messages on the linebacker thread in draft. Great stuff. 

Edited March 17, 2023 by Hunter2_1

[sammymvpknight]

He’s a guy who will perpetually have you wanting more 

[BetterCallSaul]

23 minutes ago, Hunter2_1 said:

Interested as to your opinion on Drew Sanders and Jack Campbell?

Sanders is interesting. He’s a fantastic athlete, has elite length and explosion as a possible edge guy, and is an aggressive player overall. Has no problems in coverage physically, but lacks nuance with his eyes and discipline. He’s underdeveloped and has pretty poor instincts right now. Misses a lot of tackles, but has elite potential. I wouldn’t take him in the 1st round. Even as a pass rusher, he’s boring and only utilizes speed rushes. He needs way more time.

Campbell is pro-ready. Good athlete, great size, great tackler, excellent instincts as a zone dropper. He is late to trigger to blocking schemes, which is frustrating. He wasn’t playing traditional MIKE LB very often at IOWA either. I think he will be just fine as a starter in the NFL, but he won’t be a TFL guy that makes many “impact” stops in the run game. He keeps himself clean by being slow to the play, which I guess can be good at times, but I still am left wanting more from his tape as far as fitting the run with violence. Probably gonna win DROY and have a billion tackles, but most will be 4-5 yards down the field.

Campbell is the more consistent player & is safe as can be. Sanders is similar to a Jamie Collins to me. 

[HoboRocket]

On 3/16/2023 at 11:41 AM, Teen Girl Squad said:

Thats a good comp. Smith flashed and all the predraft rhetoric took over and the Cowboys rushed into a terrible deal.

Hopefully the Cardinals will be smarter with Isaiah Simmons. Dude is a poor man's Zach Cunningham at LB, a poor man's Obi Melifonwu in the slot, and a poor man's Jamal Adams at safety. He's not awful, he's just not good at anything but will very occasionally have a splash play. He busts coverage quite often though because he's kinda stiff  and really only fast in a straight line. 

[BroncoBruin]

Really thought Jack was going to be a star as a weak side backer.

Could have been a very good running back.

[Teen Girl Squad]

5 hours ago, HoboRocket said:

Hopefully the Cardinals will be smarter with Isaiah Simmons. Dude is a poor man's Zach Cunningham at LB, a poor man's Obi Melifonwu in the slot, and a poor man's Jamal Adams at safety. He's not awful, he's just not good at anything but will very occasionally have a splash play. He busts coverage quite often though because he's kinda stiff  and really only fast in a straight line. 

I still like his long term potential at safety (I thought he was an easy SS type coming out) but I would pay him as a potential flyer, not as a top 10 pick on the cusp of breaking out.