Rookie CB

[Forge]

3 minutes ago, Pandomonium said:

isn't Fitzpatrick more of a FS than a CB?

 

He plays a lot of corner for Alabama, but largely in the slot. I don't remember him ever lining up on the outside. The question people have on him is how good would he be as a boundary corner. 

[Pandomonium]

28 minutes ago, Forge said:

He plays a lot of corner for Alabama, but largely in the slot. I don't remember him ever lining up on the outside. The question people have on him is how good would he be as a boundary corner. 

right, I view him as a safety with corner tendencies but not a true corner who can be a shut down guy on the outside.

[Geek]

51 minutes ago, Pandomonium said:

right, I view him as a safety with corner tendencies but not a true corner who can be a shut down guy on the outside.

I completely agree. He seems to get mocked to us a lot because he's talented and a position of need but when you look a little closer he doesn't really fit anywhere in our defense. I assume we move Ward back down to the slot and we have Tartt and Colbert as safeties.  So we really just need someone to play across from Spoon (unless we put Ward on the boundary and let Williams who had a quietly good season hold down the slot.) 

[Pandomonium]

55 minutes ago, Geek said:

I completely agree. He seems to get mocked to us a lot because he's talented and a position of need but when you look a little closer he doesn't really fit anywhere in our defense. I assume we move Ward back down to the slot and we have Tartt and Colbert as safeties.  So we really just need someone to play across from Spoon (unless we put Ward on the boundary and let Williams who had a quietly good season hold down the slot.) 

honestly I don't like Ward at corner 

he is not as bad as johnson but still he's somewhat suspect 

colbert has been the hidden gem of our draft and I like Tartt as the strong safety 

absolutely Williams has quietly played lights out as our slot corner

and i think Whiterspoon has a bright future 

I would just love to see a true shutdown guy like Jackson on the other side.

 

[Forge]

16 hours ago, Geek said:

I completely agree. He seems to get mocked to us a lot because he's talented and a position of need but when you look a little closer he doesn't really fit anywhere in our defense. I assume we move Ward back down to the slot and we have Tartt and Colbert as safeties.  So we really just need someone to play across from Spoon (unless we put Ward on the boundary and let Williams who had a quietly good season hold down the slot.) 

Honestly, I'm still not convinced that we are moving Ward back to corner.  All the talk is that the team still loves Ward's potential at safety.  I think we are going to start with him at Free Safety with Colbert on the bench, and then do something similar to what we did this year and have three safeties on the field on passing downs. 

[48 1/2ers]

Fitzpatrick has Jalen Ramsey potential, so we should thank our lucky stars if he's there at 9/10. 

[rudyZ]

2 hours ago, Forge said:

Honestly, I'm still not convinced that we are moving Ward back to corner.  All the talk is that the team still loves Ward's potential at safety.  I think we are going to start with him at Free Safety with Colbert on the bench, and then do something similar to what we did this year and have three safeties on the field on passing downs. 

That's my feeling as well. Ward will be a FS throughout the offseason. I think the question won't be "Will he be a FS or CB in 2018?", but rather, "Will Ward be on the team in 2019?". I hope he looks great in OTAs and stay healthy. It will give us options. If Colbert beats him out fair and square, then maybe we explore trades with teams who suffer a loss due to injury at some point. I mean, we're not getting great value for Ward, so we don't absolutely have to trade him. We can keep him around, seeing how our safeties have a tendency to get injured anyway. 

[48 1/2ers]

1 hour ago, rudyZ said:

That's my feeling as well. Ward will be a FS throughout the offseason. I think the question won't be "Will he be a FS or CB in 2018?", but rather, "Will Ward be on the team in 2019?". I hope he looks great in OTAs and stay healthy. It will give us options. If Colbert beats him out fair and square, then maybe we explore trades with teams who suffer a loss due to injury at some point. I mean, we're not getting great value for Ward, so we don't absolutely have to trade him. We can keep him around, seeing how our safeties have a tendency to get injured anyway. 

I envision a scenario for Ward a lot like the one Reid went through this year (on his 5th year of his rookie deal). He'll get a fair amount of PT if healthy just because of his versatility but it's hard to really see him in our long term plans as long as Tartt and Colbert are on the field. 

JJ Wilcox was traded for a 6th

Jets traded Calvin Pryor for Demario Davis

Eagles traded Ronald Darby for a 3rd + Jordan Matthews (last year of deal)

These are all some traded that could be what we compare a trade for Jimmie to. 

[rudyZ]

1 hour ago, 48 1/2ers said:

I envision a scenario for Ward a lot like the one Reid went through this year (on his 5th year of his rookie deal). He'll get a fair amount of PT if healthy just because of his versatility but it's hard to really see him in our long term plans as long as Tartt and Colbert are on the field. 

JJ Wilcox was traded for a 6th

Jets traded Calvin Pryor for Demario Davis

Eagles traded Ronald Darby for a 3rd + Jordan Matthews (last year of deal)

These are all some traded that could be what we compare a trade for Jimmie to. 

I think the fact that Jimmie has averaged little more than 10 games a year over the course of his career hurts his value, though. 

If he's better than Colbert, he'll be on the field, and Colbert will be a sub-package guy. Now, the question will be whether is significantly better enough to be re-signed. If the gap is small between he and Colbert, I'm sure he'll be let go in favor of Colbert, whose upside would be deemed higher. If Ward comes out with an all-pro season, do we re-sign him? Will he be a RFA? If he is, maybe we tender him and some other team swoops in and signs him. Or we trade him then.

[48 1/2ers]

What's the harm in admitting now that there is an entire offseason, camp, and preseason to evaluate the safety position and who will be the week one starter? 

It puts it out there that there is a competition which everyone can justify so no player should really be upset about, since Eric Reid before this season was a constant starter. And teams will notice that a starting caliber player is available for trade without directly saying it. 

I know we've been talking about Ward moving to corner a lot, but what about Colbert? It wasn't too long ago after we drafted Colbert when most still thought he was a cornerback coming out of Miami/Texas. 

Tartt was also under some consideration by a few here to play a hybrid role kinda like what Reid was playing at this seasons end. 

We have more options than just releasing Ward at this point in time, especially considering the versatility of the other players at the safety position. Maybe that's why we got rid of Lorenzo Jerome because he didn't have the athleticism and versatility that Colbert and the rest of the safeties. 

[y2lamanaki]

12 hours ago, 48 1/2ers said:

I know we've been talking about Ward moving to corner a lot, but what about Colbert? It wasn't too long ago after we drafted Colbert when most still thought he was a cornerback coming out of Miami/Texas. 

It's a good question to ask. I think the problem is that he never stood out as a CB when his main competition was Dontae Johnson and Keith Reaser. So he moved back to safety. But, I see no reason why we can't look at this again if need be.

I still think best case scenario is to bring in 2 corners - 1 starter/1 depth - and leave both Ward/Colbert at safety to start. I think putting those 2 in competition would force both to up their game.

[J-ALL-DAY]

I haven't seen anything from Colbert to think he would be a good CB. His range and play making is best suited for FS. What he needs to work on is wrapping up and not going for the big hit every single time. He had to have missed at least four or five tackles because of that. 

Ward to me was the most effective end of 2015 playing in the slot and making plays at the LOS. I remember he blitzed quite a bit and was effective in that area, kind of like the Honey Badger. But I'm willing to give him another offseason at FS and see what he could do. The team seems awfully high on him at that position and think he has a bright future there. First step will be to actually participate in training camp and stay healthy. 

I love the idea of signing someone like Butler and then taking a corner in the draft. A trio of Butler/Witherspoon/Williams would be very solid and a big upgrade over what we had this season. And then the rookie corner could compete for the fourth corner spot and provide good depth. Also interested in seeing the jump Mabin makes next season. Has some solid physical attributes but needs to improve on his technique. 

[rudyZ]

25 minutes ago, J-ALL-DAY said:

I haven't seen anything from Colbert to think he would be a good CB. His range and play making is best suited for FS. What he needs to work on is wrapping up and not going for the big hit every single time. He had to have missed at least four or five tackles because of that. 

Ward to me was the most effective end of 2015 playing in the slot and making plays at the LOS. I remember he blitzed quite a bit and was effective in that area, kind of like the Honey Badger. But I'm willing to give him another offseason at FS and see what he could do. The team seems awfully high on him at that position and think he has a bright future there. First step will be to actually participate in training camp and stay healthy. 

I love the idea of signing someone like Butler and then taking a corner in the draft. A trio of Butler/Witherspoon/Williams would be very solid and a big upgrade over what we had this season. And then the rookie corner could compete for the fourth corner spot and provide good depth. Also interested in seeing the jump Mabin makes next season. Has some solid physical attributes but needs to improve on his technique. 

I express this wish regularly, but I don't expect it to happen, but I'm all for using players' versatility to the max. A guy like Ward could play both FS and slot, with Colbert subbing in and out. Tartt could play the SS and the hybrid LB role at times. Williams and Ward would share the slot corner responsibilities, perhaps, depending on the opponent and the match-ups. If Tartt did play hybrid LB at times, would we be comfortable with Ward and Colbert back there? I don't know. I just like the idea that opposing teams can't easily try to exploit us, because we have personnel versatility. They can't necessarily gameplan for four quarters of Ward playing FS, or expect Williams to cover their slot guy all game long. 

This plan still requires for an upgrade at corner, though. Butler, sure. Get Dontae off the field. 

[Pandomonium]

its really sad about Donte Johnson, 
this dude is not smooth enough to play corner although he has speed  and not physical enough sto play safety even though he has size.

One of my high school coaches used to call it "big for nothin'" 

what's funny is, I can see us letting him walk in free agency, him going to another team (probably seattle just because) and playing lights out. smh

[rudyZ]

1 minute ago, Pandomonium said:

its really sad about Donte Johnson, 
this dude is not smooth enough to play corner although he has speed  and not physical enough sto play safety even though he has size.

One of my high school coaches used to call it "big for nothin'" 

what's funny is, I can see us letting him walk in free agency, him going to another team (probably seattle just because) and playing lights out. smh

I can imagine him going elsewhere, being at the bottom of the depth chart, then making one interception at some point when everyone else is injured, and then people will overreact and wonder why we ever let him go, while he in fact just sucks and we don't actually miss him. I call it the Marcus Cooper syndrome.