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Wolf6151
Joined: 11 Feb 2008
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Location: Pearland, Texas
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 Posted: Tue Oct 16, 2012 1:25 am Post subject: Bryan Braman at ILB? |
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| What do you guys think of trying Braman at ILB in place of James? Braman has the size, speed, quickness, toughness, and attitude for the position. I know there'd be some growing pains in the beginning but I think it would be worth a try. Tell him to play the run in the middle and blitz the QB up the middle. Opinions? |
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Marco79
Joined: 14 Jan 2007
Posts: 11450
Location: Bloomington, IN
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| Posted: Tue Oct 16, 2012 2:32 am Post subject: |
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No chance in hell. It may not be a bad idea but they won't take Bradie James out of the starting lineup he now wears the headset and everything.
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kenney
Joined: 24 Dec 2006
Posts: 11369
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| Posted: Tue Oct 16, 2012 11:25 am Post subject: |
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This is the sort of decision that would be made in an offseason. I don't see any way a special teams ace/third string OLB could serve as a viable solution at ILB in the middle of the season.
Sharpton should be coming off PUP this week...
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PAtexansFAN99
Joined: 04 Jan 2007
Posts: 4279
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| Posted: Wed Oct 17, 2012 2:11 am Post subject: |
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I was thinking the same thing.. I think Braman has the unique ability to get off of blocks and make plays, AND judging by his kickoff coverage I imagine he's got pretty great quickness to the hole. He could give Philips a Cushing-like option in the LB rotation.. I really think they oughtta start bringing him along if they expect to win a championship this year without Cush.
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Wolf6151
Joined: 11 Feb 2008
Posts: 2560
Location: Pearland, Texas
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| Posted: Wed Oct 17, 2012 2:29 am Post subject: |
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| I'm just thinking ILB ain't brain surgery, it's football. Tell him to play kill the man with the ball and blitz the QB when we tell you to. I think his size, speed, and attitude would be assets on the field. The guys been on special teams for 2 yrs. and the drafting of Mercilus tells me that Braman has no future at OLB, so give the guy a chance at a team weakness, ILB. |
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Grasspike
Joined: 07 Jan 2007
Posts: 4969
Location: Davidson College
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| Posted: Wed Oct 17, 2012 9:07 am Post subject: |
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| Wolf6151 wrote: | | I'm just thinking ILB ain't brain surgery, it's football. Tell him to play kill the man with the ball and blitz the QB when we tell you to. I think his size, speed, and attitude would be assets on the field. The guys been on special teams for 2 yrs. and the drafting of Mercilus tells me that Braman has no future at OLB, so give the guy a chance at a team weakness, ILB. |
Depending on the system, usually one of the ILB's makes the calls that tell the front 7 how to line up and what to do on the play, and I'm pretty sure Cushing played that role. Generally, I don't think people understand how tough it is mentally to play high level football. It's pretty much an academic pursuit. Braman is one of many that have the physical talent to be very good NFL players, but the mind is what determines who succeeds 95% of the time, and I'm not sure if he has the mind to succeed at that ILB spot.
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Apollo Stallion
Joined: 06 Feb 2008
Posts: 5093
Location: Battle Red State
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| Posted: Wed Oct 17, 2012 4:48 pm Post subject: |
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Antonio Smith is the 2nd defensive captain after Cushing and on the field nearly every down. Safeties are also logical candidates for the headset as they are adept at reading run v. pass and both Manning and Quin strike me as solid students of the game. Bradie James is a 1 year and done rental player and there is no reason he should be the helmet wearer since he has no business on the field on passing downs.
Not going to go off the rails after one bad defensive effort, but Phillips' defenses have a reputation for backsliding in year 2 and his loyalty to underperforming players is cited as one of the reasons and in our case Ball and James are two players who underperformed for him 2 seasons ago as well. Ball and James passed nobodies "smell test" of wise personnel decisions, yet here we sit in Week 7 with both being featured in prominent roles while upside players like Harris and Braman collect dust. He's earned some latitude, but IMO the experience with Kubiak's "comfort level" with Chris Brown and Ryan Moats blocking Arian Foster's path to meaningful carries ought to forever be the lens that we view the priority of a coach being comfortable with a player vs. the General Manager asserting himself and pushing a coach outside his comfort level. If I'm in Rick's seat, I'm okay with Bradie James/Alan Ball as a stopgap move to the bye week, but I'm expressing my belief that the better long-term move for the franchise is to give someone who may actually be on this roster next year the experience of relaying playcalls, give Brandon Harris the chance to prove he's a 2nd round talent, and not let the fact that one player "knows the system" better than another be a valid excuse for players like Braman, Harris, who will have been in this system a season and a half after the bye week. Remember we still have a few weeks to pull off a trade if necessary and if Harris isn't the guy, he's amongst our best bait.
I'm less inclined to force the PT issue with rookies (aka Posey/Brooks), but the reality is that if 10 rookies in the past 2 seasons can start at QB from day one, a friggin pass rusher like Mercilus can be trusted to go tackle the guy who gets the ball from the center. If Barwin/Reed/James were too good to get off the field that's one thing, but 3 combined sacks from LBs in 6 weeks ain't getting the job done in a system built to generate sacks from the OLB position.
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Grasspike
Joined: 07 Jan 2007
Posts: 4969
Location: Davidson College
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| Posted: Wed Oct 17, 2012 8:53 pm Post subject: |
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| Apollo Stallion wrote: | Antonio Smith is the 2nd defensive captain after Cushing and on the field nearly every down. Safeties are also logical candidates for the headset as they are adept at reading run v. pass and both Manning and Quin strike me as solid students of the game. Bradie James is a 1 year and done rental player and there is no reason he should be the helmet wearer since he has no business on the field on passing downs.
Not going to go off the rails after one bad defensive effort, but Phillips' defenses have a reputation for backsliding in year 2 and his loyalty to underperforming players is cited as one of the reasons and in our case Ball and James are two players who underperformed for him 2 seasons ago as well. Ball and James passed nobodies "smell test" of wise personnel decisions, yet here we sit in Week 7 with both being featured in prominent roles while upside players like Harris and Braman collect dust. He's earned some latitude, but IMO the experience with Kubiak's "comfort level" with Chris Brown and Ryan Moats blocking Arian Foster's path to meaningful carries ought to forever be the lens that we view the priority of a coach being comfortable with a player vs. the General Manager asserting himself and pushing a coach outside his comfort level. If I'm in Rick's seat, I'm okay with Bradie James/Alan Ball as a stopgap move to the bye week, but I'm expressing my belief that the better long-term move for the franchise is to give someone who may actually be on this roster next year the experience of relaying playcalls, give Brandon Harris the chance to prove he's a 2nd round talent, and not let the fact that one player "knows the system" better than another be a valid excuse for players like Braman, Harris, who will have been in this system a season and a half after the bye week. Remember we still have a few weeks to pull off a trade if necessary and if Harris isn't the guy, he's amongst our best bait.
I'm less inclined to force the PT issue with rookies (aka Posey/Brooks), but the reality is that if 10 rookies in the past 2 seasons can start at QB from day one, a friggin pass rusher like Mercilus can be trusted to go tackle the guy who gets the ball from the center. If Barwin/Reed/James were too good to get off the field that's one thing, but 3 combined sacks from LBs in 6 weeks ain't getting the job done in a system built to generate sacks from the OLB position. |
To give you a basic understanding of how things work, one of the safeties is generally in charge of calling the coverage while one of the ILB's is generally in charge of getting the front 7 aligned and assigned. The defensive coordinator will generally relay a few different options to choose from, and the ILB will select the correct ones from those options (the ILB has the power to audible just as a QB does). Generally there is a pass coverage/pass rush call and a run defense call, simultaneously. A lot of this is determined by formations and movement before the snap but after the call by the coordinator.
So one of the ILB's pretty much has to wear the headset and make the calls, for obvious reasons: In this system, an ILB can't make calls because his hand is on the ground 90% of the time, with a bunch of bodies obscuring his vision of the field. Ditto for the DE's, except their vision is even more obscured. The safeties can't generally make the call because they generally don't have anything to do with the defensive front, and even if they knew the calls, they couldn't communicate them to the defensive linemen because they're simply not close enough to them to be overheard very well.
I don't disagree with you about the other personnel issues, but the guy wearing the headset absolutely has to be an experienced ILB who is smart enough to make the correct calls on game day.
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