The surprise "make the team, etc.." thread

[CowboyMike]

It's a lot of things, I think the biggest thing has been secondary personnel, particularly the CB play. At least that was the problem last year. Rob Ryan needs pure man coverage, bump and run or press bail corners for his scheme to really work. I think this year, we as fans are gonna see more free runners at the opposing QB than we've seen in a very very long time. It might not always translate into sacks, but I'm willing to bet there won't be many complaints around here about "pass rush" or "pressure".

Spencer is a guy who can make plays, as Salty says, he's not Ware. He'll never be Ware, but he can be Woodley with a little help from the secondary. I have no doubt he rack up about 11 sacks and all the hurries and knockdowns that come along with it as long as the CBs spend all season harassing WRs.

As for that 2009 season, I think the biggest thing was those last 4-5 games, we either faced teams that didn't have elite WR's, or teams that only had speed at WR (Philly 3 times). Jenkins and Newman were good enough to shut down the mediocre WRs, and fast enough to stay with Jackson/Macklin, allowing the front 7, Spencer in particular to really get after the QB. Once we faced Minnesota, they had Rice and Harvin, with Favre throwing the ball, and that entire house of cards defense crumbled. Now, that's my theory, and there is not a ton of film study backing that up, it's mostly what I remember thinking as it was all happening.

Anyway, my main point is that "Almost" didn't get his name for nothing, he was fractions of seconds late SOOO many times the past few seasons, I gotta believe that with improved CB play, those fractions disappear and we're talking about how much we have to pay Anthony to keep him around next season.

Much obliged, good sir!