FinSaint

I'm sorry, but is an overstatement if I ever saw one.

They might not be the best LB corps in the league, but they're far from being the worts in the league.

Danno

I should clarify, they graded out as worst in the league. according to PFF.

And if they aren't the worst in the league, they're very close.

We have...

MLB- Lofton - Good LB but with limited range in coverage.

SLB - Hawthorne, so far he hasn't played well at all, graded out horribly (102nd OLB in the entire league). Has looked OK at times but overall not a solid SLB. Could be because he played MLB in Seattle and now shifted outside.

WLB- Shanle? Herring? Casillas? Vilma? Not good. Maybe Vilma can restructure and learn OLB, but so far he looks terrible at WLB.

I don't think I overstated the issue at all.

FinSaint

I don't know about grades, but I was only going by my own perception of seeing the Saints' LB corps play and then also seeing other teams' LBs play - in very small samples I admit, but nevertheless.

I think Lofton is much better in coverage than he is given credit for - much like a certain #41 - and I do think that he is in the upper tier of the league when it comes to MLBs. What I saw out of him was solid tackling all through the year and not many missed assignments. Granted he might not have been a "defensive QB" similar to, for example, the Super Bowl winning Jonathan Vilma, but I think he will improve on that front in the coming season when both he and Spags become more familiar with each other and the limitations/strengths of the defensive scheme as opposed to opposing offensive alignment.

Hawthorne is more difficult to evaluate, but given his body of work in Seattle, I'm inclined to think that the Saints do have a really good LB in their hands with him. His major problem this season was that he picked up that nagging injury which kept him out of the starting line-up for six games. He is a real thumper of a LB and that is what Spags probably wanted to introduce to the line-up with his signing. He is a natural MLB - which is a good thing considering that if something should happen to Lofton, Hawthorne could step in to that position with a bit of ease. He has been one of the leading tacklers in the league for the past few years: from 2009 to 2011 he played in 47 games while recording 338 combined tackles, which is 7.2 tackles per game; in 2012 he played in 11 games while recording 38 combined tackles, which is 3.5 tackles per game. So that to me says that either his injury affected his game much more than we have discussed on these boards or that his game was affected by the fact that he was played out of position... or both. We have to remember that while he is a natural MLB, he did play some WLB (successfully) in Seattle, but no SLB as far as I'm aware of. So, to make a long story short, I do think that Hawthorne is definitely an above average LB, and in some areas he is probably near top tier, but he should probably be placed indefinitely in the WLB position and as the back up to Lofton as the MLB. Another year in the system and without any significant injuries, and I think he'll be a really good player for the Saints in 2013.

So, to me SLB is the problem position, but that can be "easily" changed via draft or the free agency. I think players like Casillas, Herring, and especially Chamberlain (if he can fully recover from his severe injury) can provide nice depth and special teams play, but they do definitely need to address the SLB position regardless of what happens with Vilma's future with the Saints.

So, maybe the grades do place them in the bottom end of the league when it comes to LBs around the league, but playing in the defense that allows the most yardage ever in the history of the league probably will affect every players' grades negatively no matter how well they actually performed in their own individual roles. I'm not saying that they played stellar or that they didn't miss some tackles and assignments along the way, but I do think that they weren't the reason why that defense allowed so many yards this past season. So, I'm still very upbeat about the LBs the Saints have at the moment (Shanle removed of course) and with the introduction of an OLB who'll fit the SLB position and especially what Spags requires out of that position - I honestly think that they can be a top 5 LB corps in the league.

"I'm not bashing people, I'm bashing their opinions because in my opinion their opinion is wrong" - Danno