Philosophically, I generally disagree with spending a 1st rounder on a 4-3 LB. They more or less grow on trees in my mind. But whatever, the team values the position to an unwise extent and there's no changing that now.
But I'm fine with him as a player.
I don't really see Urlacher at all when I look at him. I mean, he's a big white guy with lots of mass and good athleticism on paper, so I see where people make those comparisons for cosmetic reasons. But Urlacher's athleticism jumped off the TV screen to me when I watched him play for the Lobos in college. A LB so athletic to get sent back to return some kicks and punts? That was something else.
I see the athleticism in his combine numbers. That's a positive. It's not everything, especially at LB where I'll take instincts over workout numbers every day of the week (especially Sundays). But looks good. If you're lanky and quick and your head's on a swivel and you can jump, you're harder to throw the football around when trying to quickly fire passes to TEs for first downs or goalline TDs.
I don't really care that he only started for 1 year. That happens these days. Sometimes guys are only available to you because of those kinds of nit-picky faults. If he played one more year and did repeated (or expanded upon) what he did this past year, he'd have been picked a handful of picks earlier than 19 anyway, most likely. Would I love to always have 3 or 4 years worth of starts to evaluate everyone? Sure. But we live in reality where that's not always how it goes.
The fact that he played well when he played is enough for me. So I trust he's not just a workout warrior who kills it in the Combine but disappears on the field.
