Quote Originally Posted by pbmax View Post
He doesn't strike me as that dumb. Quite the opposite actually.

Finley clearly lived in a space in his head where everyone's concerns and his contract numbers mattered to him. I don't get that sense from Raji.

Now it didn't work out for him, so his gauge of the market and his performance plus role conspired to hurt him badly. But outside of second half foray's into being a consistently penetrating tackle regardless of the play design (often when the D was getting gashed), he seemed eminently coachable. Matthews has made more news about a position switch.
I'm guessing that Raji played 2013 completely within the system, actually doing what he was asked: to double team and keep the ILBs clean. He didn't freelance to penetrate because he was focused on doing what he was supposed to do.

It just so happened that his low statistical productivity made it look like he was in severe decline, and no one wanted him. I think he was really just supremely miscast as a DE, but he was still a better DE than Pickett.

So hopefully, as a NT, he'll start showing up on the stat sheets more.