ILB: Filling the open slot ?

[wist43]

weird, because that's exactly what he did, but he was a little slow getting into the pattern with the TE because he was leveraging the RB inside. He was right there on a good pass.

He never engaged the TE.

[mraynrand]

He never engaged the TE.

he should have. As I pointed out, it was his negative play, but he still did some good things on that play. He has some recovery time to look at film. I bet he can watch all six plays fifty times each.

[hoosier]

That's because skin got it banished to the Garbage Can.

Oh yeah. It was cocked and loaded, I forgot about that.

[bobblehead]

No, he was doing the same things in his limited playing time the other night that he had been doing in college.

Bad angles, poor diagnosis, poor awareness. Have you ever heard of coaches trying to get a player to work on his "eyes"??

Don't know what to tell you beyond the fact that he looks the part physically and athletically, but he's just not a football player.

I'm backing wist on this one. Either a guy can identify and chase down the ball or he can't. The eyes thing is new to me, and I did say at least they were working on his weakness, but I haven't ever seen it "fixed" to my knowledge. The reason I don't value speed at ILB is because instincts trump speed every time.

I am much more patient waiting on King to heal than Burks...at least King is good when he plays.

[mraynrand]

I'm backing wist on this one. Either a guy can identify and chase down the ball or he can't. The eyes thing is new to me, and I did say at least they were working on his weakness, but I haven't ever seen it "fixed" to my knowledge. The reason I don't value speed at ILB is because instincts trump speed every time.

I am much more patient waiting on King to heal than Burks...at least King is good when he plays.

Neither has played all that much - 11 versus 4 starts (King, Burks). Burks also was transitioning his position. I'm inclined to believe Wist is right about the guy too, especially the way he was embarrassed by 'Cheat, and other missteps, but he's pretty raw and some coaches had remarked that he'd improved. The surprising thing was the sense from coaches that he was considered an integral part of the D. Maybe that was just blowing smoke. The injury will probably put him on the back burner again, maybe for the whole season.