Anthony Spencer

[burmafrd]

Thing is you cant compare to ware. Hes a once in a decade talent.

some of his homers though try

 

[neosapien23]

Does anyone think Osi Umenyiora could play the strong side? My brother and I disagree with this. I think Osi has the size and speed to be a factor lined up opposite Ware despite his lack of experience in playing outside linebacker. I think he and Ware would be a killer duo and I don't think Osi is going to get the big money he is expecting on the open market, but I wouldn't mind bringing him in for the money that it would take to sign Spencer.

 

[Joshmil53]

Does anyone think Osi Umenyiora could play the strong side? My brother and I disagree with this. I think Osi has the size and speed to be a factor lined up opposite Ware despite his lack of experience in playing outside linebacker. I think he and Ware would be a killer duo and I don't think Osi is going to get the big money he is expecting on the open market, but I wouldn't mind bringing him in for the money that it would take to sign Spencer.

Osi is washed up.

 

[neosapien23]

Osi is washed up.

The dude has 4 sacks this year as a part time player. Last year he had 9 despite missing games and losing a starting role. He sacked Romo twice last year despite being washed up. Is he DWare? No...But I think he brings alot more than Spencer and he will not cost big money. He will probably sign for somewhere around six to seven mill while Spencer thinks he is worth 9 mill.

 

[Crown Royal]

but not at the price he will demand

This is my biggest concern. For somewhere between 4-5, maybe 6/year, I can see it. Anything more and you are now overpaying. Which may be something someone else in the league may want to do. Best case is Jerry stops worrying about a deal for an injured player (Church) or a player who makes some nice plays but isn't completely reliable (Sensabaugh, Scandrick) and gets a deal done with Spencer before he hits the free market. Get him for 4.5/year for 4-5 years and we are pretty solid and not overpaying.

Exactly, somewhere I read he was only sacked
like 3 times through 7 weeks.... we got 3 that night alone.

Ryan gets the ball out pretty quick. The times he was able to complete a deep pass had nothing to do with a lack of passrush, but more to do with the lack of reliable safety support.

I would like to look elsewhere. He's simply not worth the franchise tag type money we are paying him. We need somebody who can consistently get to the QB from the other side of Ware. Not only that, if Ware gets hurt we are screwed.

I think between Ratliff and Hatcher, we tend to get a good game pressuring the QB from one of them. And from what I've seen, the defense is usually better when both Ware and Spencer are on their A Game than when Ware and one of the D-Linemen are on their A Game.

Of course, this could be easier if we ever decided to work to stockpile draft picks again.
YR

I'd agree with you on looking elsewhere, but it just isn't on the highest list of needs for me. I'd sooner keep him, try to find a nice pass rusher to spell him or play on the DL, and focus next offseason on improving my OL, Safeties and WR corps.

Spencer could possibly be improved but I don't want to make that a glaring need if I can get these other pieces.

 

[jterrell]

Who's better Spencer or Greg Ellis back in the day?

Greg Ellis by a slight margin imho.

Ellis was a better pass rusher and stronger at the point of attack.
If you need a guy to drop into coverage Spencer is 100x better than Ellis ever was.

Greg was double-teamed fairly often. Not because he was great but because he played with terrible defenders largely. When he teamed with Ware and had single-team match ups versus left tackles he was good for 20.5 sacks over his final two seasons even though he missed 3 games with injury.

Spencer is hardly some bum but he is a step slow as a pass rusher and lacks any real pass rush move. He isn't strong/low enough to bull rush people. He isn't quick enough to just blow by them. We've only had 2 guys play significant time as Ware's counterpart and Ellis was easily the better of the two in the pass rush dept.

For a defense that needs to create more big plays Ellis would be far better of a fit.

 

[jterrell]

Aren't the strongside LB's primary responsibilities to stop the run and cover the TE? So once the ball is snapped he's basically hovering close behind the line unless he specifically is assigned to go in on a blitz, right? Plus he's always going to be facing an extra blocker on his side with that TE lined up opposite him. Not sure then how you can expect a ton of pressure from the SAM unless you send him in on the blitz a lot. I mean, Ahmad Brooks only has 4 sacks so far. Woodley only has 3.

No, you are describing a 4-3 SLB.


The 3-4 SOLB primary responsibility is to kill the QB when asked to rush the passer which happens on at least 1/3 of his plays. That number may sound low but isn't on reality. After that you ask him to stop the run and play some coverage. Team's often single block Spencer with JUST a TE.

Spencer is a good player but he is arguably as good as a SLB as he is a SOLB.

Woodley averaged 11.5 sacks the previous 3 seasons. Ahmad Brooks is simply a very mediocre SOLB.

***And if I could pay him as a top 10 SLB I'd bite. But I can't pay him big-time pass rusher money when he isn't a big-time pass rusher.

 

[goshan]

Greg Ellis by a slight margin imho.

Ellis was a better pass rusher and stronger at the point of attack.
If you need a guy to drop into coverage Spencer is 100x better than Ellis ever was.

Greg was double-teamed fairly often. Not because he was great but because he played with terrible defenders largely. When he teamed with Ware and had single-team match ups versus left tackles he was good for 20.5 sacks over his final two seasons even though he missed 3 games with injury.

Spencer is hardly some bum but he is a step slow as a pass rusher and lacks any real pass rush move. He isn't strong/low enough to bull rush people. He isn't quick enough to just blow by them. We've only had 2 guys play significant time as Ware's counterpart and Ellis was easily the better of the two in the pass rush dept.

For a defense that needs to create more big plays Ellis would be far better of a fit.

Dead-on analysis. In my opinion, Spencer is definitely around the ball more though than Ellis was overall. But he is missing explosive moves to make enough highly impactful plays.

 

[ak47kaehu]

Aren't the strongside LB's primary responsibilities to stop the run and cover the TE? So once the ball is snapped he's basically hovering close behind the line unless he specifically is assigned to go in on a blitz, right? Plus he's always going to be facing an extra blocker on his side with that TE lined up opposite him. Not sure then how you can expect a ton of pressure from the SAM unless you send him in on the blitz a lot. I mean, Ahmad Brooks only has 4 sacks so far. Woodley only has 3.

Exactly on point!

I think he is very valuable and needs to be resigned. People seem to always get concerned about sack numbers!

Let me throw something out there. What if a player had 15 sacks in one season but the opposing teams overcame 12 of those sacks and picked up first downs. What good are those 12 sacks? On the other hand what if a player only had 6 sacks on the season but they were all clutch game ending sacks? Number of sacks dont tell the whole story!

 

[Jenky]

He's average. 3-4 mill a year is all I would give. The guy can be stout against the run, but get juked out of his socks when he's rushing a QB.

 

[jterrell]

Exactly on point!

I think he is very valuable and needs to be resigned. People seem to always get concerned about sack numbers!

Let me throw something out there. What if a player had 15 sacks in one season but the opposing teams overcame 12 of those sacks and picked up first downs. What good are those 12 sacks? On the other hand what if a player only had 6 sacks on the season but they were all clutch game ending sacks? Number of sacks dont tell the whole story!

Unfortunately, it logically works exactly the opposite way.

Offenses spend lots of time trying to avoid getting into bad down and distance situations while the defense tries to put them in them. The defense also tries to make the QB uncomfortable and push him off his preferred launch point. But most of all they want to hit the QB as often as possible.

There's plenty of statistical evidence to back this method up out there somewhere. They use it on broadcasts all the time.

Basically all defense is about pressure and coverage. The more you pressure the less you need to cover and vice versa.

The biggest thing with Spencer right now is he is as good in coverage as he is as an additional pass rusher. That is not what you want in a 3-4 OLB by design. It does help Ryan in his exotic schemes however and thus does have value. Just not 8-9m per year value.

Sacks can cause yardage losses, knock teams out of field goal range and cause fumbles. We know this because D Ware seems to do it weekly. Spencer does not.

 

[kiheikiwi]

Is it possible to franchise him for one more year, don't know the cost - might be too high, and draft his replacement this year, so we get a year to bring the new guy up to speed. Like we did with Spencer when we got him ?
So we dont have a rookie starting opposite Ware, and can get him some snaps before he gets thrown to the wolves...

 

[burmafrd]

Is it possible to franchise him for one more year, don't know the cost - might be too high, and draft his replacement this year, so we get a year to bring the new guy up to speed. Like we did with Spencer when we got him ?
So we dont have a rookie starting opposite Ware, and can get him some snaps before he gets thrown to the wolves...

$8.8 million this year

and that will increase to over $9 million next year

NO WAY

 

[Hoofbite]

I've pretty much have been on the resign band wagon and haven't changed my mind yet.

Still believe that adding a 2nd d-lineman that can consistently push the pocket would make him shine, but I am happy with the job he does.

Yes, lord knows a guy who needs the best pass rusher opposite of him, a lockdown secondary behind him and a bull DT or DE beside him to push the pocket in order to succeed is worth bringing back.

 

[Hoofbite]

People act like he's rushing the passer every down. The guy, at least last night, is in coverage a LOT.

I think he's a good player, would love to have him back, but there's no way 9 mil a year is acceptable. I think around 6.5 should be what he gets.

PFF has the Atlanta game as his second lowest in terms of coverage snaps.

 

[FiveRings]

I'd like to resign him, I was low on him coming into the season but he's played well, I don't know how much of his production this year is "contract year stuff". But, if we can put money towards a good NT, move Ratliff to DE then I think our pass rush problems will be solved.

 

[Hoofbite]

None of the "get rid of Spencer" crowd has an answer for that question. It's one of those random drum-beater things that they just say without any rhyme or reason.

I'm pretty sure A LOT of people were talking about Kamerion Wimbley.

He's playing DE in Tennessee now and currently leading the league in the stat most commonly used to validate Spencer's production........QB Hurries.

4 sacks, 3 QB hits and 38 hurries so far.

Bruce Irvin was a hot name prior to draft time. 7 sacks. Even though there was no chance of getting him this year because Dallas had to get a CB, the fact remains you can draft a guy who comes in and gives you more of a pass rush.

Shea McClellin was taken in the first and so was Chandler Jones.

It doesn't have to be in the 1st round.

Brooks Reed was a 2nd rounder in 2011.

Another one of the Houston's rushers who had 11.5 sacks last year was a 2nd rounder 2 years prior in Connor Barwin.

Sam Acho was a 4th rounder in 2011.

But lets say you get a guy who doesn't come in and give you as many sacks as Spencer does right away. Lets just pretend that the guy you draft gives a little less. So what? You're paying a smidgeon of the price and even if you get a little less, you can rightfully expect him to improve and a year or two down the line he'll be giving you a couple more sacks than what you would get with Spencer. Spencer is what he is. You cannot rightfully expect him to improve going into his 6th year like you can with a guy going into their first year.

In one of the Spencer threads a while back, I thew out names of guys who rush from the same side and get better production per pass rush.

One of the guys I looked at really impressed me. Justin Houston. Rookie 3rd rounder last year.

Justin Houston

In fact, Justin Houston had the 5th highest (actually lowest, but best is what I am getting at) ratio amongst ALL OLBs. Only bested by James Harrison, Ware, Aldon Smith and Woodley.

If you take that ratio and apply it to the number of pass rush snaps that Spencer had, he would have had 12 sacks. Just interesting to find guys who are flying low. I would like to point out that there is a discrepancy between his credited sacks and what Pro Football Reference has. He's credited with 0.5 more sacks on Pro Football Focus. However, using those numbers only shifts him down to the 6 best ratio and still gives him 11.5 sacks if prorated to Spencers rush attempts.

What I was talking about was sacks per pass rush attempt.

He finished with 5.5 last year. I'll take 5.5 from a rookie over 6 from Spencer any day of the week. Especially when that 5.5 comes on half as many pass rush attempts as the 6.........like it did.

Houston rushed half as much and came up 0.5 sacks short.

This year, he's at 6 sacks and he's rushed even less than last year.

In fact, if you divide his rush attempts by his sacks to get the number of rushes it takes for him to get a single sack (for him 22.8), he's 2 rush attempts behind Ware (20.5) which comes in at #3 overall.

Even with the two freebies Spencer got in Seattle, he's still 12 rush attempts behind Houston (34.3).



Acting like there are no options available is delusional. The players are out there, you just gotta find them. The only reason any team should be scared of trying to match what amounts to mediocre production is if they lack total confidence in their ability to scout talent.

Even if a rookie came up with half as many sacks his rookie year, I'll take that trade off knowing I saved 7-8M in cap space that I can apply to other spots on the team and having confidence that the guy I drafted will improve.

 

[dreghorn2]

Dallas needs to find a pass rusher to play opposite of Ware.

That has to be the OLB or the DE, pick one.

3-4 or 4-3, doesn't matter, if they don't find the supplementary pressure across from the big guy then they won't become the type of defense that can carry a team through rough offensive periods, find ways to beat good offensive teams, and ease the burden overall by dominating weak opponents and giving the club much needed relief with the occasional blowout that really helps during a long season.

Spencer is not that type of player so if they keep him they have to find one on the defensive line.

This eclipses safety as a priority and i don't understand why it hasn't been aggressively looked at every single draft.

Have to have that second option!

 

[TellerMorrow34]

I wouldn't mind resigning him for the right price.

 

[ilovejerry]

Who's that? Is there anyone but ware on the line? the Giants have 4 DL that all can pass rush we have 1 yeah yeah dont give me Rat he is hurt all the time. Dware is the only constant on the DL and thats a problem!