Jake Ryan, 2015 Fourth Round Pick

[red]

i think ILB is pretty important in our system. our zone, or whatever the hell it is, leaves the ILBs responible for the whole middle of the field. we've seen for 5 or 6 years now that teams can almost trow at will on us over the middle

it may not me as important as a lot of the other positions on defense, but you can't just neglect it either

and TT has spent high draft picks on every position on defense EXCEPT ILB (hawk was drafted as a WLB for a 4-3)

[3irty1]

i think ILB is pretty important in our system. our zone, or whatever the hell it is, leaves the ILBs responible for the whole middle of the field. we've seen for 5 or 6 years now that teams can almost trow at will on us over the middle

it may not me as important as a lot of the other positions on defense, but you can't just neglect it either

and TT has spent high draft picks on every position on defense EXCEPT ILB (hawk was drafted as a WLB for a 4-3)

I don't think its so much that the position isn't valuable to Ted as much as its a skill set where its theoretically easier to find good players with mid round picks and even UDFAs.

Until he got a big draft bargain on Lacy he hadn't brought in a high RB either. I like that comparison because with those two positions are similar in that success is more about vision and fit so they tend to be about as good as they're going to get immediately. This means you can search for an Arian Foster, Alfred Morris, Paul Worrilow, or Vontaze Burfict every year pretty effectively while using 1st round picks to address more difficult needs to fill. With LBs "bum mining" as wist puts it has the benefit of really helping your special teams too.

[mraynrand]

i think ILB is pretty important in our system. our zone, or whatever the hell it is, leaves the ILBs responible for the whole middle of the field. we've seen for 5 or 6 years now that teams can almost trow at will on us over the middle

it may not me as important as a lot of the other positions on defense, but you can't just neglect it either

and TT has spent high draft picks on every position on defense EXCEPT ILB (hawk was drafted as a WLB for a 4-3)

I think the move of Clay inside and the increased emphasis on safety shows that the middle is important. You'd like to have that ILB that can cover and tackle, but I don't think it was really there in this draft, and to draft the guys available in the early rounds to do this dual job would have been reaching.