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WhoDat!656 02-19-2012 06:13 PM

Article-Early look at Saints 2012 linebacker core
 
Out with the old and in with the new — defensive coordinator Gregg Williams left for the Rams — and the New Orleans Saints replaced him with their former head coach, Steve Spagnuolo, whom they hope can inject some pass rush life into a rather limp squad.

Obviously there are fundamental differences between Williams and Spagnuolo.

Starting with the most obvious, Williams loves to utilize the blitz, sending “the house” after quarterbacks far too often.

In his three seasons as the Saints defensive coordinator his game plan became well known, as he blitzed more than any other d-coordinator in the league — in fact last season nearly 60% of the time.

That left some defensive players in compromising one-one-one pass coverage situations, that often times lead to big gains for opposing offenses who were able to exploit these miss-matches.

Even though they blitzed more than any team in the NFL it failed to generate the sack totals one would expect with that much pressure — registering only 33 last season — which ranked 19th in the NFL.

Regardless of whether Williams chose not to leave the Saints for the Rams, the team likely would have looked elsewhere this off-season in an amicable split as the defense has been the primary reason New Orleans was bounced from the playoffs the last two years.

Spagnuolo on the other hand is not afraid to blitz, but chooses instead to generate a pass rush with his front four while dropping his linebackers and safeties into coverage with a more balanced attack.

Under his direction the Giants defense, utilizing the “fire zone blitz”, was among the best in the NFL at generating sacks in both the 2007 (58 sacks) and 2008 (42 sacks) seasons.

It was this defense that also helped win the Giants a Superbowl title (XLII) over the New England Patriots in 2007, as they were consistently able to pressure quarterback Tom Brady throughout the game after sacking him five times.

But with fundamental scheme changes comes personnel changes, and the unit likely to see the most shake-up under Spagnuolo is the linebacker core.

No longer will they be fired at the line of scrimmage, but dropped into coverage, and you need ultra athletic linebacker’s who can cover well to make the scheme work.

Last season the Saints primarily used Jonathan Vilma at middle linebacker, as well as Scott Shanle and Jo-Lonn Dunbar at outside linebacker, with some help from Jonathan Casillas, Will Herring, and rookie Martez Wilson on the edges.


An early look at the New Orleans Saints 2012 linebacker core

halloween 65 02-19-2012 06:54 PM

I still want a MLB or OLB in FA or the draft. Competition will be great. Cass. just can't stay healthy and Vilma is to much money for his lack of production. I do think Spags. will bring in 1 maybe 2.

CharityMike 02-19-2012 07:18 PM

Solid write up. Not trying to beat a dead horse but under his Spags theory, why would we still have Shanle? He doesn't cover well and is slow. Goes against him stating that Spags defense requires athletic Lb's to make it work.

gandhi1007 02-19-2012 07:24 PM

Martez Wilson will play his balls out at OLB this year. :-P

Ashley 02-19-2012 07:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gandhi1007 (Post 379273)
Martez Wilson will play his balls out at OLB this year. :-P

I agree Martez should be able to get onto the field a lot more this year.

QBREES9 02-19-2012 08:48 PM

Let it shine, Let it shine, Martez Wilson let it shine.

AlaskaSaints 02-19-2012 09:03 PM

That's what I like to read right there!

Shanle is to athletic... what "Special" is to Olympics.

LOL

Alaska

spkb25 02-19-2012 10:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AlaskaSaints (Post 379297)
That's what I like to read right there!

Shanle is to athletic... as what "Special" is to Olympics.

LOL

Alaska

Too funny

FinSaint 02-20-2012 01:54 AM

I do think the Saints have a group of really promising LBs in Casillas, Wilson, Bussey, and Hunter (who I think might surprise many of us next season), but those young guys need some veteran guidance whether it be from Vilma or someone else.

I don't agree with some of the other things stated in the article:

Quote:

Last season Dunbar filled in for Vilma when he missed five games with a knee injury, and he did not disappoint. One could make the argument that there was no drop off in the defense’s effectiveness, and Dunbar excels in pass coverage.
In my opinion, pass coverage was Dunbar's weakest area on the field this past season, and that is what he has to work on the most in order to become a better MLB.

Quote:

Wilson, a third round pick in last years draft out of Illinois, is a superb athlete that boarders on getting the “freakish” label. At 6 foot 4, and 252 pounds, Martez has blazing speed being clocked at a 4.49 in the forty — fastest at the NFL Combine in 2011.

Martez compares favorably to New York Giants defensive end Jason Pierre Paul measurmentally.
First of all, I don't know why he would compare a DE with a SLB, since they play a different role on the field. And Jason Pierre-Paul is listed as 6 foot 5, and 278 pounds, so I don't understand how Wilson "compares favorably" to him?!

If he meant in terms of a LB compared to a dominant DE, then I guess he might have a case that Wilson is a relatively big SLB, but no way is he the biggest (or one of the biggest) in the league. And in any case, what is that comparison supposed to tell us?

gandhi1007 02-20-2012 03:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FinSaint (Post 379325)

First of all, I don't know why he would compare a DE with a SLB, since they play a different role on the field. And Jason Pierre-Paul is listed as 6 foot 5, and 278 pounds, so I don't understand how Wilson "compares favorably" to him?!

I think he was comparing his athleticism and speed to that of Jason Pierre-Paul. 6'4" and 252 lbs is not that far off from 6'5" and 278 lbs. He's actually faster than Paul & has a similar build & wingspan.

Marlboro Man 02-20-2012 09:39 PM

Before I even get started, lets not forget Ramon Humber either. He definitely showed some speed and very good tackling along with a very nice violent style. I think that with today's 6'-5" + TE's becoming the norm, Martez is the perfect SLB for the new style offenses with those monster TE's. His tackling ability is excellent and he has the speed to beat most of those TE's to boot. Shanle may be kept around for vet leadership but you just can't trust Casillias to stay healthy so we're gonna need to draft someone there just in case.

To me, the biggest question that no one is asking is: How in hell is Spags gonna all of a sudden get a pass rush and pressure from a D-Line that hasn't been able to do it for 6 freakin years? What? is he gonna give em all some magic dust that's gonna suddenly make them all pro's? I don't think so. For 6 straight years I've been Bi....errr Complaining about our D-Line and how they needed to be upgraded. I was all for Sed Ellis but must admit he's been a disappointment as has every other DT we've had on this team since the Payton era. Will Smith is good, but not great and he's not gettin any younger and we just need to get better both there and at DT. Notice I didn't say too much else about the DE position. Why? Because we have a couple of promising players that look to be on the rise. Junior Galette was starting to come on late last year and was being very disruptive in the opponents backfield. I'm not very impressed with Cameron Jordan, this guy couldn't sack Cam Newton to save his life. Maybe a move to DT might be best for him because he's tall (Which Spags likes) and he's got a good motor and he's strong. Let's remember too, that we have Greg Romeus in the wings who we've not seen anything from but who before his injuries was considered one of the best DE's coming out. He's now had a full year to study the playbook and recover from his injuries and should be able to hit the ground running this year. Therefore, we seemingly have a pretty nice 3 man rotation with Smith, Galette and Romeus and could either go with a DT, DE, or OLB with our first 3 picks.

Strangely, I can still see the Saints making a trade. Not necessarily into the first round though that could be done by packaging say Harper and PT. More realistically and especially since we have Sproles and Payton went out of his way to get Ingram (Who I'm not very high on, hopefully that will change) which makes PT tradeable and I'd think we could get a higher 2nd round pick for him and still have Ivory, Ingram and Sproles plus Chris (Can't remember his last name) the UDFA in the 4th slot. If that could be done, we could move Quddus to FS which he is better suited for and move Jenkins to SS which he is better suited for and all of a sudden, we've got a pretty good looking defense.

Offensively, for all those worrying about losing Colston, I'm not. Let's not forget all those potential TD drops he's had the last 3 seasons. On top of that, we've got Joe Morgan and AA already in the wings and, there are two WR's in the draft that are 6'-5" and one of them runs a 4.4 in the 40 and the other is still faster than Colston. Additionally, Colston deserves a big pay day but we just can't afford it and I think one of these guys would be just as good if not better so we'd all better get used to seeing some of our favorite players in other unis this next season cause we don't have time to waste if we want another SB in the Payton era.

FinSaint 02-20-2012 10:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Marlboro Man (Post 379431)
To me, the biggest question that no one is asking is: How in hell is Spags gonna all of a sudden get a pass rush and pressure from a D-Line that hasn't been able to do it for 6 freakin years? What? is he gonna give em all some magic dust that's gonna suddenly make them all pro's? I don't think so. For 6 straight years I've been Bi....errr Complaining about our D-Line and how they needed to be upgraded. I was all for Sed Ellis but must admit he's been a disappointment as has every other DT we've had on this team since the Payton era. Will Smith is good, but not great and he's not gettin any younger and we just need to get better both there and at DT. Notice I didn't say too much else about the DE position. Why? Because we have a couple of promising players that look to be on the rise. Junior Galette was starting to come on late last year and was being very disruptive in the opponents backfield. I'm not very impressed with Cameron Jordan, this guy couldn't sack Cam Newton to save his life. Maybe a move to DT might be best for him because he's tall (Which Spags likes) and he's got a good motor and he's strong. Let's remember too, that we have Greg Romeus in the wings who we've not seen anything from but who before his injuries was considered one of the best DE's coming out. He's now had a full year to study the playbook and recover from his injuries and should be able to hit the ground running this year. Therefore, we seemingly have a pretty nice 3 man rotation with Smith, Galette and Romeus and could either go with a DT, DE, or OLB with our first 3 picks.

Strangely, I can still see the Saints making a trade. Not necessarily into the first round though that could be done by packaging say Harper and PT. More realistically and especially since we have Sproles and Payton went out of his way to get Ingram (Who I'm not very high on, hopefully that will change) which makes PT tradeable and I'd think we could get a higher 2nd round pick for him and still have Ivory, Ingram and Sproles plus Chris (Can't remember his last name) the UDFA in the 4th slot. If that could be done, we could move Quddus to FS which he is better suited for and move Jenkins to SS which he is better suited for and all of a sudden, we've got a pretty good looking defense.


Trading Harper would cost ~$17M in cap space, so I think that is out of the question.

Trading away PT makes no sense in my mind - he is cheap, productive, and under-valued - SP wants to have that 4 RB depth, and Chris Taylor is not a potential starter to replace PT.

Jordan is really good against the run and setting the edge, so I would definitely keep him primarily as a DE, who'd rotate in on running situations.

Romeus is an unknown, and we simply can't count on him being the answer to the D-Line pass rush.

There are numerous really good DT prospects in the 2012 draft while not so many good DE prospects (who'll be available to the Saints), so DE might be a position they'll have to try and improve through the FA rather than the draft.

Another area of improvement through the draft should be the LB corps, and I'd like the Saints to focus heavily on these two key defensive positions along with the O-Line depth with the draft. But if history is anything to go by - they'll probably end up picking players in other positions simply because they were the BPA when the Saints were on the clock.

In my opinion Abdul-Quddus is a SS all day long (based on his skill-set and college career) and moving him to FS would, therefore, be problematic. Jenkins, on the other hand, wouldn't fit a SS role since tackling has been one of his biggest problem areas. Jenkins is more suited to being a FS mainly because of his CB background, and I think he'll have a much better 2012 season, which will make us all forget about his shortcoming this past season.

halloween 65 02-20-2012 10:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FinSaint (Post 379435)
Trading Harper would cost ~$17M in cap space, so I think that is out of the question.

Trading away PT makes no sense in my mind - he is cheap, productive, and under-valued - SP wants to have that 4 RB depth, and Chris Taylor is not a potential starter to replace PT.

Jordan is really good against the run and setting the edge, so I would definitely keep him primarily as a DE, who'd rotate in on running situations.

Romeus is an unknown, and we simply can't count on him being the answer to the D-Line pass rush.

There are numerous really good DT prospects in the 2012 draft while not so many good DE prospects (who'll be available to the Saints), so DE might be a position they'll have to try and improve through the FA rather than the draft.

Another area of improvement through the draft should be the LB corps, and I'd like the Saints to focus heavily on these two key defensive positions along with the O-Line depth with the draft. But if history is anything to go by - they'll probably end up picking players in other positions simply because they were the BPA when the Saints were on the clock.

In my opinion Abdul-Quddus is a SS all day long (based on his skill-set and college career) and moving him to FS would, therefore, be problematic. Jenkins, on the other hand, wouldn't fit a SS role since tackling has been one of his biggest problem areas. Jenkins is more suited to being a FS mainly because of his CB background, and I think he'll have a much better 2012 season, which will make us all forget about his shortcoming this past season.

I totally agree about the lb.'s, but I think Quaddus would make a fine FS, he is much more fluid than Jenkins and seems to have a better feel of where the qb. is going with the ball. It is going to be interesting with those 2 in camp but I feel Quaddus could be better than Jenkins. And your right about the DT's in this years draft they are plentiful, I just hope we get the right 1 or 2.

CharityMike 02-21-2012 12:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Marlboro Man (Post 379431)
Before I even get started, lets not forget Ramon Humber either. He definitely showed some speed and very good tackling along with a very nice violent style. I think that with today's 6'-5" + TE's becoming the norm, Martez is the perfect SLB for the new style offenses with those monster TE's. His tackling ability is excellent and he has the speed to beat most of those TE's to boot. Shanle may be kept around for vet leadership but you just can't trust Casillias to stay healthy so we're gonna need to draft someone there just in case.

To me, the biggest question that no one is asking is: How in hell is Spags gonna all of a sudden get a pass rush and pressure from a D-Line that hasn't been able to do it for 6 freakin years? What? is he gonna give em all some magic dust that's gonna suddenly make them all pro's? I don't think so. For 6 straight years I've been Bi....errr Complaining about our D-Line and how they needed to be upgraded. I was all for Sed Ellis but must admit he's been a disappointment as has every other DT we've had on this team since the Payton era. Will Smith is good, but not great and he's not gettin any younger and we just need to get better both there and at DT. Notice I didn't say too much else about the DE position. Why? Because we have a couple of promising players that look to be on the rise. Junior Galette was starting to come on late last year and was being very disruptive in the opponents backfield. I'm not very impressed with Cameron Jordan, this guy couldn't sack Cam Newton to save his life. Maybe a move to DT might be best for him because he's tall (Which Spags likes) and he's got a good motor and he's strong. Let's remember too, that we have Greg Romeus in the wings who we've not seen anything from but who before his injuries was considered one of the best DE's coming out. He's now had a full year to study the playbook and recover from his injuries and should be able to hit the ground running this year. Therefore, we seemingly have a pretty nice 3 man rotation with Smith, Galette and Romeus and could either go with a DT, DE, or OLB with our first 3 picks.

Strangely, I can still see the Saints making a trade. Not necessarily into the first round though that could be done by packaging say Harper and PT. More realistically and especially since we have Sproles and Payton went out of his way to get Ingram (Who I'm not very high on, hopefully that will change) which makes PT tradeable and I'd think we could get a higher 2nd round pick for him and still have Ivory, Ingram and Sproles plus Chris (Can't remember his last name) the UDFA in the 4th slot. If that could be done, we could move Quddus to FS which he is better suited for and move Jenkins to SS which he is better suited for and all of a sudden, we've got a pretty good looking defense.

Offensively, for all those worrying about losing Colston, I'm not. Let's not forget all those potential TD drops he's had the last 3 seasons. On top of that, we've got Joe Morgan and AA already in the wings and, there are two WR's in the draft that are 6'-5" and one of them runs a 4.4 in the 40 and the other is still faster than Colston. Additionally, Colston deserves a big pay day but we just can't afford it and I think one of these guys would be just as good if not better so we'd all better get used to seeing some of our favorite players in other unis this next season cause we don't have time to waste if we want another SB in the Payton era.

First off..what Fin said. Second, you must not be to smart to want to trade the BEST RB on our team? Are you in la la land? Just so we are all clear, by your logic, you want to trade a player that will cost us 17 mil and trade our best RB.....so what you are saying is you want to make sure we have no chance of going to the SB? Cause if we did what you suggest, we wouldn't have any money whatsoever to sign any free agents or even pay new rookies. SO our defense would have zero chance of getting any new blood and we just traded our best RB so now we have issues on offense. Genius!

I AM GOING TO ANSWER YOUR QUESTION AGAIN. You posted the same question in another thread and a few of us gave a response. Maybe it wasn't what you liked, I don't know. First answer this. How did we all of a sudden go to the SB with ALMOST the SAME D we have now in 2009? Because GW brought a new attitude and a change in philosophy. Guy's got fired up. So once again, we are getting a new D Coach and guess what can happen again..can you guess? That's your answer! There is no other answer but that, it's all we have to hope for and if you have been paying attention the last couple of years, you could see the decline in the D and know it was time for a change.

|Mitch| 02-21-2012 01:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CharityMike (Post 379446)
How did we all of a sudden go to the SB with ALMOST the SAME D we have now in 2009?

We had a secondary coach who made sure the corners and safeties could catch the ball? Now the DC for Denver...

And a free safety before the latest knee surgery who was a ball hawk?

CharityMike 02-21-2012 01:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by |Mitch| (Post 379448)
We had a secondary coach who made sure the corners and safeties could catch the ball? Now the DC for Denver...

And a free safety before the latest knee surgery who was a ball hawk?

So this is not possible now?

|Mitch| 02-21-2012 01:35 AM

I didn't say it wasn't possible, I just give more credit to the secondary coach[name slipped my mind] rather than G.W...

CharityMike 02-21-2012 01:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by |Mitch| (Post 379450)
I didn't say it wasn't possible, I just give more credit to the secondary coach[name slipped my mind] rather than G.W...

Dennis Allen.

I have not been a GW supporter especially as of late BUT you can't honestly not give GW credit. He made the players believe in themselves and they had a swagger that they haven't had since the Dome Patrol.

My point is we have new blood. Spags is a PROVEN winner as a DC. A change of pace with a new dc in 09 brought greatness. It can happen again!

FinSaint 02-21-2012 04:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by |Mitch| (Post 379448)
We had a secondary coach who made sure the corners and safeties could catch the ball? Now the DC for Denver...

And a free safety before the latest knee surgery who was a ball hawk?


Allen is the HC in Oakland now, and I think Sharper's presence helped out the secondary a lot - both his own abilities and how he probably coached up the other guys.

I think the pair of Flajole and Curtis can be every bit as good as Allen was, maybe even better. If you look at the 2011 season the Rams' secondary had injury-wise, you can't help but to admire how especially Curtis was able get 3rd and 4th string guys to play at the level they did.

Back to the earlier discussion... I think that the Saints' DE situation could be turned around by simply adding a single FA player into the mix, assuming he is the right player.

The pair of Smith and Campbell/Avril/Mathis could be a dominating starting pair with Jordan, Gallette, Romeus, and perhaps McBride in the rotation.

Of course, at least Campbell and Avril are subject to being tagged and I don't know if the Saints can afford any of the three even if they weren't, but the point remains the same.

Assuming the DTs are able to create more push next season, Smith could still be a good to very good DE for the Saints, and adding the right guy next to him could fix the whole DE situation while still having a group of younger DEs in the rotation and ready to be used in the more exotic front 4 packages Spags occasionally calls.

halloween 65 02-21-2012 09:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CharityMike (Post 379451)
Dennis Allen.

I have not been a GW supporter especially as of late BUT you can't honestly not give GW credit. He made the players believe in themselves and they had a swagger that they haven't had since the Dome Patrol.

My point is we have new blood. Spags is a PROVEN winner as a DC. A change of pace with a new dc in 09 brought greatness. It can happen again!

I wouldn't go as far as comparing the 09 Saints for a year to a Dome Patrol that did its job year in and year out, to me there is no comparison. The 09 team has a good turnover rate, yes we won a Superbowl with them and yes we had swagger for 1 year, but until we have a dominating D like the Dome Patrol on a consistant level there will be no swagger on a consistant level and Sharper was the man in the back field and wish we had another just like him, Jenkins I don't believe is the answer. And yes you are right it can happen again but I want consistancy not a roller coaster.


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