Rob Ninkovich's retirement takes Sean Payton back in time
 

Re: Rob Ninkovich's retirement takes Sean Payton back in time
 

Re: Rob Ninkovich's retirement takes Sean Payton back in time
 

Re: Rob Ninkovich's retirement takes Sean Payton back in time
 

Re: Rob Ninkovich's retirement takes Sean Payton back in time
 

I know how many Saints fans feel about Ninkovich, but he was solid, not great. He's not HoF material, that's for sure.

And while he was here, he was constantly hurt. He played 8 games his first 4 seasons. In 2 seasons with the Saints, he played 3 games, those 3 games his first season, 0 games in his second go-around after he got hurt in preseason.

The Patriots took a very small gamble on an often injured player that paid a starting LB (in their system) for 8 seasons. Lucky them.

Re: Rob Ninkovich's retirement takes Sean Payton back in time
 

I always remembered him being on the IR.

Re: Rob Ninkovich's retirement takes Sean Payton back in time
 

Re: Rob Ninkovich's retirement takes Sean Payton back in time
 

Not exactly. Look at your stat page again.

https://www.pro-football-reference.c...N/NinkRo20.htm

Even if we give Ninkovich the benefit of just using his stats from his 8 years in NE, we are looking at 279 tackles and 46 sacks.

The tackles are downright pedestrian.

The sacks may seem high for a LB, but when you look at the list of active players with more sacks than Ninkovich, even when you just look at LB's, 46 sacks in 8 years is not very impressive:
Brian Orakpo has 57 sacks in 8 years.
Ahmad Brooks had 51 sacks in 8 years in SF.
Clay Matthews has 72 sacks in 8 years.
Cameron Wake has 81 sacks in 8 years.
Justin Houston has 60 in 6 years.

Those are all contemporaries of Ninkovich.

I am very sure that if Ninkovich had had the exact same career stats wise while playing for Cleveland, no one would remember him. The only reason Saints fans remember him is because he played with NE and NE won SBs.