Our new look ILB position moving forward.

[Corrosion]

Originally Posted by Rey

Yep...

I also saw dobbins out there in nickel some instead of bradie james

Remember me sayinga couple weeks ago .... move Reed to Cushings spot and Mercilus in at OLB ??

I dont think Reed was "instinctive enough" today , he looked unsure at times in the middle .... but he's probably the most capable player on the roster of doing at least some of what Cushing does from the middle. He was pretty solid when asked to drop into coverage and gives a better rush option than James.

They have two weeks to work in some new wrinkles and get the details ironed out.



Dobbins surprised me with his coverage ability today ..... He always seems to be around the ball.

[thunderkyss]

Originally Posted by Corrosion

Dobbins surprised me with his coverage ability today ..... He always seems to be around the ball.

Agreed. His open field tackle of Ray Rice was nice. & when he robbed Pitta of that reception, knocking the ball out of his hands.... awesome.

[drs23]

Originally Posted by Corrosion

Remember me sayinga couple weeks ago .... move Reed to Cushings spot and Mercilus in at OLB ??

I dont think Reed was "instinctive enough" today , he looked unsure at times in the middle .... but he's probably the most capable player on the roster of doing at least some of what Cushing does from the middle. He was pretty solid when asked to drop into coverage and gives a better rush option than James.

They have two weeks to work in some new wrinkles and get the details ironed out.



Dobbins surprised me with his coverage ability today ..... He always seems to be around the ball.

He surprised me as well for the same reason. Dude just has a nose for the ball and looked pretty good in space. Once he gets his hands on ya, ya ain't gettin' away. He looked damn solid.

[SAMURAITEXAN]

Originally Posted by Corrosion

Remember me sayinga couple weeks ago .... move Reed to Cushings spot and Mercilus in at OLB ??

I dont think Reed was "instinctive enough" today , he looked unsure at times in the middle .... but he's probably the most capable player on the roster of doing at least some of what Cushing does from the middle. He was pretty solid when asked to drop into coverage and gives a better rush option than James.

They have two weeks to work in some new wrinkles and get the details ironed out.



Dobbins surprised me with his coverage ability today ..... He always seems to be around the ball.

Good call Corrosion!!! Seems like Reed can handle it and he only gets better with more experience.

[powda]

Originally Posted by b0ng

It certainly is something though when you can be prideful for never having "drunk the kool-aide" and always being skeptical.

Go you.

How's that super bowl ring working out? That's right, we didnt get it. Cushing got hurt, predictably our defensive performance declined. What was difficult to foresee here?

[powda]

Does anyone still feel the need to chastise the skeptical when they're right? Nobody's trying to sh*t on a homers parade...just brining an element of reality to the table. Super bowls are an anomaly and shouldn't be expected even with a good team...so much can go wrong...things have to go wrong unless fate is on your side. Revisiting old threads like this amount to accountability. Do you feel like a dumbass now for being critical of people whom had a realistic approach?

[Texanmike02]

Originally Posted by gtexan02

This is a good point. Additionally, we can only have one ILB on the field in our nickel and dime packages, so whoever is the #2 ILB is not an everydown player.

The only issue for me here is that ILB has consistently been one of the easiest positions to draft. Very few 1st round ILBs turn out to be busts. DTs, on the other hand, are second only to QBs in bust potential. The Texans have not been good at drafting interior lineman.

Best player available

[thunderkyss]

Originally Posted by powda

How's that super bowl ring working out? That's right, we didnt get it. Cushing got hurt, predictably our defensive performance declined. What was difficult to foresee here?

It wasn't that just that Cushing got hurt. It was also that our replacements got hurt. No one is going to win a Super Bowl when you can't start the same ILBs two weeks running. We may have started the same two ILBs two weeks running maybe three times since Cushing got hurt & that's abnormal. That's hard to do & be successful at the same time.

Bradie James is slow to disect & react to the run. That's fine, if Daryl Sharpton is next to him. But if it's Sharpton next to him for one week, Dobbins the next, back to Sharpton, then Ruud the next, then it's Dobbins & Sharpton, Dobbins & Ruud..... you can't watch tape, scheme for your weaknesses, then correct those weaknesses when you're throwing a different player with different weaknesses out there the next week.

It was abnormal to have so many injuries at that position & not something you can plan & scheme to overcome. Then when you add it the injury to Cody, Brooks, & the ineffectiveness of Connor Barwin, you're in a no win situation & you've got to do the best that you can.

We never got stable at that position, hard to recover when you're taking blow after blow, week after week.

[powda]

Originally Posted by thunderkyss

It was abnormal to have so many injuries at that position & not something you can plan & scheme to overcome. Then when you add it the injury to Cody, Brooks, & the ineffectiveness of Connor Barwin, you're in a no win situation & you've got to do the best that you can.

I agree wholeheartedly, and yet identifying the problem and saying it here midseason means your "not a fan" according to some. I was told just that in this thread for saying there's trouble up ahead. Funny how quiet those people are now.

[thunderkyss]

Originally Posted by powda

I agree wholeheartedly, and yet identifying the problem and saying it here midseason means your "not a fan" according to some. I was told just that in this thread for saying there's trouble up ahead. Funny how quiet those people are now.

Seriously, if it ended with Cushing's injury, it wouldn't have gotten as bad as it did.

I don't know if we'd have won the Super Bowl (chances, not) but we wouldn't have looked as bad.

It's not that Cushing got hurt, at that time, the posters saying, "let's see how it play out" were right.

But his replacement (Dobbins) got hurt. The guy next to him (James) got hurt. The guy who replaced Cushing's replacement (Sharpton) got hurt. We had to sign a guy off the street (Ruud) & he played quite a few snaps. We had to sign a second guy off the street (Alexander) who became part of our awesome STs....

I'm sorry they questioned your "fandom" but you can't come back & say, "I was right" when the back up's back up got hurt.