The Trickle-Effect of a Situational Player

As a former MLB myself, I can confirm that you have done a very good job of outlining our weak spot at ILB…VERY IMPORTANT INDEED…And, even though you have decided to patiently wait until FA shows itself, I would contend that there is little chance of a viable/real solution through FA…SO, I will say it for you, with the 11th pick of the 2010 NFL Draft the Denver Broncos select Rolando McClain!!!

Thanks for the work…Go Broncos…13-3 Baby (yup, I’m starting already!)

Great job Elvis.

I had looked at the LB’s as a group & noted the drop off in performance. I had not looked at them situationally and individually. Thanks for putting this in perspective.

rec’d

No doubt you will probably get some flack from analyst on here that swoon over DJ, but I’ve stated the same things you have with stats and I don’t even use them. I do most of my evaluating with the eye and this can’t be achieved watching the game as I stated in a post earlier last week, it has to be done with a taped game where I can rewind and stop in the middle of each play note where the player I’m watching is in regard to the play.

I want to commend you on the stat work, because it does takes a lot of leg work and time. DJ claimed he was finally playing the position that he is most comfortable in (Jack) weak side ILB and I comend his ability to be versatile enough to endure 4 different DC’s and still perform at soem level of competence. That’s the reason I have a hard time brow beating him at this point, however if he is retained by the staff, then his performance this season should be nothing short of stellar and there won’t be any excuses. Head Coach Josh McDaniels can’t afford to wait and see if he will indeed be the super player he was drafted for. That’s why I am hoping we draft Roland McClain in the first rd if he is still available. McClain would be an immediate starter behind DJ and be a direct impact on defense.

Some have said they would draft a DT or DE with the first pick, I disagree, so you all know where I stand regarding which is the greatest need for the team. I want to win and I want to win now, not 3 or 4 years down the road and this draft has the players who can get us there.

I have been thinking the same thing, though not in as much detail. You did a great job putting this together. I love the logical progression – and the pictures are also entertaining.

I was feeling a lot of the ILB-Need pressure right before the Senior Bowl, and Witherspoon really stood out there. He had a ton of range and did a lot of things well. I’m no scouting pro… so my opinion really shouldn’t be considered too heavily when it comes to the draft, but I liked what I saw from Weatherspoon. I hope he makes it to the second round. I think we need to take an OL in the first, but DL are so abundant this year, I can see us waiting until the third to pick one up. Who knows.

Anyways, I like Mizzou’s Sean Weatherspoon. Who do you like as an/the upgrade?

From my personal experience, outside of man corner by the CBs, this is a very difficult statistic to assess. I saw one version of it where they assigned the passing yardage on a play to the player who made the tackle! I just watched the first quarter of the Colts-Broncos game to assess how easily I could assign passing yardage responsibilities, and it was far from obvious.

Additionally I would avoid putting too much weight into a statistic that relies on total yards, as opposed to a yards per type of formulation, since it doesn’t present equal context for individual performance.

My own feeling on ILB is that we need to add one more ILB by the time training camp rolls around, and that we need to be looking at how we want to build the ILB roster for 2011, since both Woodyard and Davis will be free agents. However, with so many needs elsewhere, to me we need to limit ourselves to adding only one player to the two deep roster. This could mean resigning Griesen for developmental purposes, but I doubt it. I feel that our target here should be a solid starter caliber player who can reside on the two deep behind DJ. However, if the Broncos want to bring in another RB, as many advocate (and it would make sense), then they will probably be looking at Larsen as taking a slot at ILB, which means we actually wouldn’t be able to bring anyone in.

I think 2011 is the “Year of the ILB” as far as our needs and roster math are concerned.

On a sidenote I am very interested in seeing where MCClain goes in the draft. I have seen some putting him in the top 5, I have seen others as low as the second round. I’m hearing that the teams that will value him the most are looking at him to be able to scrape off the tackle and effectively pressure the outside. Not exactly projecting him to OLB, but looking at him as being more useful moved around, not just dominating the middle like a Patrick Willis and racking up the quality tackles. I’m curious if a team like KC would really value a player like McClain enough to take him that early, and if so, whether they would view him in the way that I mentioned. It seems odd.

Awesome post Elvis, Rec’d for sure!

While I’ve probably had these thoughts in my mind, I haven’t been able to put them together as clearly as you did.

This put everything into perspective for me again, and am even more stuck on getting McClain in the draft! I still can’t get over the prospect of how badass our linebacker corp would be with McClain on board.

Dumervil – Williams – McClain – Ayers

Best group of young LB’s in the league in a year or two!

There’s a reason this D is run in high schools, and its because its good against the run. But in the modern NFL it pretty much tells the opposition exactly what you’re doing pre snap.

I can’t imagine if we do end up with McClain…. seems like a great fit from what I can decipher (and I’m not getting paid for it either). Though I do like the prospect of trading that #11 for some later picks, or a worthy trade/FA if applicable (ahem.. Sproles… cough)…

Anyway, thanks for sharing the great outlook and observations!

Your numbers confirm that we are weak at ILB. Although Andra is succumbing to the pressures of Father Time, I feel that DJ needs to step it up this season… there are no more excuses. I also hope to see more of Larson this season.

Terrific writeup, EA! I enjoyed it very much. Rec’d

On a side subject in a galaxy far, far away… I’m not sure I ever heard confirmation of the start time for the interactive mock tomorrow. Was it ever confirmed at noon Eastern/10 Mountain?

This or this.

Sure does make me think now, though I haven’t really been considering ILB as a very critical need just yet.

I have to agree with Jeremy’s assesment of our current ILB situation, but the post is well written and well thought out. These are the kinds of posts I love to read. Great job!

I think we can stand pat at ILB for now, and address other needs.

I think you’re selling yourself short on the scope of this article. This is a phenomenal platform for focusing on multiple players.

Guys that are partially or wholly limited on our defense are more than just Davis and Williams. Dumervil and Dawkins are also limited, although to varying degrees.

I agree with your assessment that Andra Davis is brutal in coverage. But we knew that going in. We also know that DJ is not wired for coverage. Arguably, his best season was at weakside backer early in his career, which is maybe the easiest (read: most instinctive) position to play on the field. Let’s not forget in this space that coaching has as much if not more to do with this situation than the player personnel. When three of the four (and in some cases all four of four) starting linebackers’ weakness is pass coverage, why would you run a defense that stresses their weakness as much as last year’s sceme did?

We have a new D coordinator who’s more linebacker-centric than the former DC. I believe that it’s the DC’s responsibility to put his players in the best possible position to be able to succeed. I don’t think Mike Nolan was 100% successful in doing that, not that any DC can be. However, the list of players on Denver’s defense who are spotty or worse at pass coverage all being linebackers (DJ, Doom, Davis), I have to raise my eyebrows at the scheme Denver used last season. I understand completely that Denver’s defense was successful at times early in the season, but let’s not make a huge generalization that Denver’s defense was dominant at any time last year. As an example, Dallas was picking up huge chunks of yardage at sporadic points during the game and Tom Brady had a gawd-awful game and had his tackle go down early enough in the game to change the play calling, and on top of that, those games were early season home games.

I think you could have talked as much about Dumervil and the duplicity that he presents to the Broncos defense. He’s a linebacker/defensive end according to the team website. He’s 5’11" (maybe) and 250 lbs. That’s not a DE, especially in the 3-4 defense. He’s not a player who is helpful as either a run stopper or in pass coverage. He is solely a pass rusher. That’s fine as a DE, but not a LB in my opinion, and because of this, it’s my opinion that Denver has some soul searching to do when it comes to what to do with Doom this next season. It’s going to be really tough to figure out how much Elvis is worth financially. It’s a task I’d be avoiding as long as possible if I was Xanders and McDaniels. He’s so incredibly valuable at one very important facet of the game, but he’s also a liability in 2 other facets of the game. He has fabulous intangibles and I think Denver has to find a way to try and have their cake and eat it too when it comes to Doom, but they can’t keep doing what they did last season, because it didn’t work unless the offense was in an obvious passing situation. Our D-Line isn’t good enough to make up for any one of the linebackers’ shortcomings (and let’s not even go down the Ayers/Haggans rabbit hole here), so, in my opinion, that’s the number 1 priority for the off season (improving the point of attack).

In the end, Denver could get younger at ILB, but with tweaks to the scheme and a new coordinator, they may want to wait another season to invest such a valuable draft pick on a player that, on some level, depends on the success of another player or players to be successful.

First, let me just sort of simplify my answer to some of that by saying that I certainly agree that there are more situational players than just Davis. Elvis is basically one-dimentional and Dawk isn’t getting younger. I guess I do tend to give these guys a flyer, but I’ve got my reasons, oh yes! =)

Dawk and Doom (as you elluded to) are great players in specific phases. I don’t think the word elite is out of line, although one could argue that point with Dawk’s slight-ish decline. The point is that these guys are good enough at certain things to deal with the bad. I’m not kicking Jessica Alba out of bed just becacuse I don’t like her feet, ya know? The other thing is that I don’t see an upgrade on the horizon for either of these guys, so I sort of see it as a non-issue. Dawk will retire here, and there’s no upgrading him in 2010. Just a fact. If Doom leaves it will be for an offer-sheet and draft picks. But again, we’ve got no control. No draft picks, no upgrade.

I jumped on Davis, because he IS replaceable. And in my opinion, you build a 34 from the inside out. I consider it a very crucial position to be in the middle.

Anyway, back to Doom. He’s a head scratcher, like you said, when it comes time to push the little paper with all those zeros accross the table. Could we justify paying him as a top DE? That’s more expensive than a linebacker. He’s a good guy, but he’s going to want FMV. I think others out there would pay him in that range, especially after this season when they don’t have to give up picks.

I’m going to jump away from the talent aspect of it for a minute and hit a point that I think could end up just as crucial. It seems silly, really, but the PR standpoint can’t be ignored when dealing with his contract. And when I say PR, I’m not only talking about press, but players as well. Let’s say BM walks. We will have then sent two young pro-bowl, superstar-ish players packing in the first two years with a new, young, rookie, HC. What’s going to happen if you then send Elvis kickin rocks? I’m not necessarily saying that we would base a decision on fear. But it’s a factor. We’ve got to sell tickets, keep the coach from being brutally beaten in the streets, and maybe even appease some fans. If BM goes, call me crazy, but if BM goes, I’d say keeping Doom is easily worth paying an extra mill, or so, per year.

As for the “point of attack” discussion you brought up, I talked in a post to Jeremy up above, about my thoughts on upgrading there. We seem to agree that we need change. I think I’m in the minority, though, in thinking it’s at the nose (for the reasons mentioned above), but there was a great post the other day by Swg777, that really nailed it on the head. So it seems many might agree. I still haven’t gotten over those greedy hoarders of NT’s in GB franchising Pickett. I still hold hope that they could move him in TC if Raji shows he’s ready.

Thanks again for all the great discussion. Between yours and Jeremy’s replies, I feel like I just wrote a term-paper. Good stuff, good stuff!

There is a very good market for a talented situational pass rushing at OLB in the 3-4 scheme. Much as I understand and don’t disagree in principle with super7’s comments regarding him as a DE (great comment, by the way, s7), Doom wasn’t able to handle the tackles and didn’t work out as well at DE, even though it’s unfair to say that he wasn’t productive. He’s a LB and will stay one. However – I’m in full agreement that he struggles against the run, is just learning coverage and that has to come into his contract as well. He could continue to develop and grow into the role, and I suspect that he will. But we’ll have an extra year to find out, as things turn out.

His coverage skills are obviously raw, but improving. I’m more concerned about him learning to stop the run more effectively – with his somatype, there’s not real reason taht he shouldn’t tackle well and play the run well. He’s got the arms and the hand strength to keep his legs clean – he just hasn’t really mastered this skillset yet. And I say ‘yet’ because with 2009 being his first at the new position, there’s every chance that this can improve.

Despite our concerns as fans, though, it looks likely that 2010 will be a year on hold in many ways. The big contracts are still a year away – the lack of the CBA lets the teams hold the line on money, and that’s going to produce some seriously disappointed players, including Orton, Doom and Marshall.

You may well be right. My feeling is that Xanders has a plan for this – that’s why he’s there. Perhaps we do tie them up soon – I suspect, though, that the teams (and not just the Broncos) will use the opportunity – in general – to save some money. I agree that this may backfire – we’ll soon see ;-).

I did note that the agents of the players are fleeing Combine much much earlier this year. There was an article in NFP that commented on this, among others. They felt that the teams will not be dealing in FA much, as we’re seeing. The statement was also made that the teams are using the CBA as an excuse to avoid long term commitments until they see what the next CAB brings. That could be wrong, certainly – NFP is a long way from gospel. It’s going to be a fun spring!

hopefully if it becomes common place then guys like KO, Doom and BM won’t hold a grudge…

This is a fascinating discussion. Rec’d.

I only wish I believed McClain would be there at #11…I don’t believe he will be.

altough, I’m sorry, but when a D is getting torched by the run but performing very well against the pass, you simply CANNOT get rid of the best run-stuffing-LB they have (A. Davis). We all need to take a deep breath on Davis’ lack of coverage skills and think back to the Broncos D’s of the last few years that couldn’t buy a tackle. The only way I see that Davis could even possibly be expendable is if we achieve a SERIOUS upgrade on the DLine (ie – Wilfork-style NT and a P. Williams at DT).
Also, it’s never been entirely clear to me why Rolando McClain is such a favorite for the Broncos to pick up in the draft – IMHO, the only real fit for McClain in Denver would be to replace DJ (as noted by Styg above) which does not really make any sense at this point in time.