Originally posted by Heroism:
The dude finally develops into the player that Trent Baalke envisioned and people want him to walk? What the f**k is with you guys? Are you suffering from CTE as well?
Watch this dude's sacks. They weren't cheapies or fluke sacks. He got better--a lot better. If you want to attribute part that to scheme, coaching, surrounded by better talent, etc. it really doesn't matter because none of those variables are changing next season. The scheme ain't changing, his coach ain't changing and teammates aren't changing(may get better, actually). But the fact is he got a whole lot better this year. Dude busted out an arsenal of new moves this year.
Long-time lurker, first time poster. Big fan of your posts, Hero.
AA was a beast this year. It'd be awesome to keep him, but for cap purposes, I've been wondering if you or anyone else have thoughts on this path forward:
- If we can't keep AA, move DeFo to play AA's position as the base DE / nickel DT role. I think he's capable and maybe even slightly quicker/more athletic than AA so better suited for base DE (AA seems to have a better bull rush).
You can see he got a sack vs the Seahawks in Week 17 from the DE spot, which is what gave me this idea... (although this was against a bad OT):
I think he's also got a bit more speed and range than AA, so DeFo would do better keeping contain (saw AA lost contain a few times in the SB...). See this play chasing down Russell Wilson around 55 seconds
- This would still keep DeFo at the 3T in nickel and let him feast inside, so not totally taking him away from a position where he's been top 5-10 in the league in pass-rushing situations
- In the Wide 9, because of the massive gaps I think there's a lot of pressure put on the DTs especially in the run game. The DTs need to either 1) plug up and eat 2 blockers, or 2) knife through and penetrate quickly into the backfield. I think DeFo's raw stats were down this year because he probably spent some much time eating up double teams... there's that table where he was top 5 or 10 in the NFL in taking on double teams (his win rate was around 15-20).
I think the Wide 9 actually favors DTs like DJ Jones (stout, low center of gravity, quick) over DeFo (powerful but tall, long and takes time to make his move). Think losing DJ Jones caught up to us in the Super Bowl the way Damien Williams ran the ball when the Chiefs were spread out. Not to say DeFo was bad at 3T in the Wide 9, but i wonder if we could better match skillset and scheme.
- Easier said than done, but in short, the idea is DeFo = AA's role + find another DT like DJ Jones (either a space eater, or a quick gap penetrator). I haven't looked at what the Draft/FA market looks like, but it could be a more cost-effective way forward while not taking a step back on defense (Suh signed for $10m/year last offseason vs AA for $15m+). If anything, we were around 14th or so against the run this year so this idea could actually make us better vs. the run, while not giving up anything in pass-rush.
Thoughts?
