Overrated Mcclain

[SR 7]

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/sp...929CE795CDF39186862576B80014181C?OpenDocument

At the Senior Bowl, the plan for Weatherspoon has included a little bit of everything. The Detroit Lions' coaching staff, which is coaching the North squad, has been using him at weakside, strongside, and middle linebacker. Lande, for one, thinks Weatherspoon could make an ideal inside linebacker in a 3-4 scheme.

 

[ckparrothead]

You had me till the whole "he's decent cover guy. He's smart as hell, too." I agree with most of the post but Channing's downside, besides non-existing blitzing capabilities, is that he cant cover well. He's usually on the ground looking up at one of our DB's taking down the RB that just ran past him. He can't cover a TE (but most LB's cant either) but he needs to be able to seal holes and cover laterally better. 1 Interception in how long? A blind squirrel finds a nut faster than Crowder picks a ball. (However, His Brady INT was SICK!!! HAHAHAHAHA!) As for his "smarts" well I dont know the man but as far as how I've heard him talk he is dumber than a sack of rocks.

Channing has big play ability but he's so worried about not making a mistake that he tends to freeze or slow his decisions down a bit. Like a poster pointed out earlier: When Zach was around Channing had flashes of being amazing because he could take a leap and know that Zach was close behind to clean it up. That's what Rolando McClain brings to the table. Zach like qualities. SMART!, Great Decision Making, Hard Hitting, a Student of the Game, Field General all qualities Zach and Rolando share (and coincidentally nothing of which Crowder has).

Rolando is not a Rey Rey type LB that is going to smack you around till you're forced to fumble or throw an INT. Rolando is like Zach in that he'll study you, figure you out, then translate that on the field.

BUT WITH ALL THAT SAID: ROLANDO IS NOT OR WILL EVER BE ZACH THOMAS!!! DONT GET ON ME FOR THE COMPARISON. I AM A CROWDER AND MCCLAIN SUPPORTER!!!

Two things. One, yes Channing Crowder is a decent cover guy when healthy. There have been times when he has been victimized in coverage when he has had injuries that have hurt his mobility. Most times they give him an inordinate amount of coverage responsibilities, because our OLBs both in 2008 and 2009 have been terrible cover guys, and he has handled it pretty well. In 2008 not a single TE scored on us until Channing Crowder was out with an injury against Tony Gonzalez and the Chiefs. This year, TEs killed us a lot more, but part of that was due to a new scheme and both Yeremiah Bell having a worse year compared with 2008 from a coverage standpoint, and Gibril Wilson's mistakes. You're not SUPPOSED to have a linebacker like Channing Crowder running down the field with Dallas Clark. Any time that happens you have either a failure of scheme, or a failure of execution somewhere else to where the scheme is depending on one or two players to make sure that even with Crowder having to run downfield with Dallas Clark, the ball has very little likelihood of getting there because of, let's say a blitz on Peyton or a jam on Clark at the line of scrimmage, something like that.

Every time you see Channing Crowder come out of the game, someone who knows what they're seeing can look and see just how much the defense misses his coverage ability. He's not perfect at coverage, but he's clearly and by far the best that we have at coverage amongst every linebacker on the roster.

The second thing, about his smarts, yes he is a very smart football player and a very smart person period. He was in the honors society back in high school, he graduated Florida with a 3.5 or 3.7 GPA or something like that, and he scored like a 30+ on the Wonderlic. If you listen closely, you can hear that he's a very smart individual who likes to have fun with people. What was completely ironic about that whole "I didn't know they speak English in England" joke was that the people who harped about it supposedly showing how dumb Channing was, were themselves the ones that were too slow to get the joke. Tony Sparano has praised his intelligence a number of times. He calls the defense and he's a very intelligent football player.

 

[ckparrothead]

Don't you think thats why having a guy like Dansby or Spoon at MIke and CC takign Akins spot makes more sense and compliments one another better than McClain because Spoon brings something neither do...great coverage ability, 3 down player/playMAKER, and hard hitter with great speed. CC is not a mike but better suited to have Akins spot due to that spot requiring a bigger backer thats job is to attack the LOS and the run game.

I'm not saying McClain isn't good, I realllly like the guy but Spoon makes more plays with half the talent on his team especially on a D line point of view. I think Spoon is just a playmaker/gamer period and putting him around talent can make him a major impact player. Do you still see this whole "he is only a 4-3 backer due to can't take on blocks" stuff to be true?

I think Crowder would complement well with any of the above. Channing has a good feel for slamming himself into the hole in order to force the running back where the defense wants instead of allowing the running back the ability to choose where he wants to go. That would work well with McClain, who is more used to being able to flow to the runner and not worry as much about that kind of gap control. It would also work well with Weatherspoon, because right now Spoon doesn't know how to do that AT ALL, and so if you put Crowder in there next to Spoon you have at least one guy that knows how to do that while the other guy is more of a freelancer that attacks the ball whichever way he can and at the same time is a good coverage backer. I think that Crowder and Dansby are both such smart and experienced veterans that they would complement each other naturally.

Crowder and Spikes are a little harder to tell. I say that simply because they both have that great feel for slamming the door on the hole and playing gap control, rather than freelancing to the ball or having the defense built to channel the ball toward them. Also, Spikes is a zone cover guy that thrives on reading the QB's eyes. He's not been given as much straight up man coverage in his days at Florida, which would mean that Channing would have to continue being the stronger cover player. There is some thought that if you have these two working the interior then you need at least one stronger cover guy amongst the OLBs...or maybe both. Of course, there is something to be said for that. Denver had Mario Haggan at the strong side spot, and Green Bay had Clay Matthews, both I would say had more versatility coverage-wise than Matt Roth, Jason Taylor or Joey Porter. Manny Lawson's athletic ability came in handy that way in San Francisco.

But anyway, I don't think there's one way to skin a cat in this regard. Crowder's a good player whom I feel takes a beating because he's not a fantastic player. Akin Ayodele and Reggie Torbor are the guys who struggle too often to achieve "mediocre" status. I would start there.

 

[SR 7]

I think Crowder would complement well with any of the above. Channing has a good feel for slamming himself into the hole in order to force the running back where the defense wants instead of allowing the running back the ability to choose where he wants to go. That would work well with McClain, who is more used to being able to flow to the runner and not worry as much about that kind of gap control. It would also work well with Weatherspoon, because right now Spoon doesn't know how to do that AT ALL, and so if you put Crowder in there next to Spoon you have at least one guy that knows how to do that while the other guy is more of a freelancer that attacks the ball whichever way he can and at the same time is a good coverage backer. I think that Crowder and Dansby are both such smart and experienced veterans that they would complement each other naturally.

Crowder and Spikes are a little harder to tell. I say that simply because they both have that great feel for slamming the door on the hole and playing gap control, rather than freelancing to the ball or having the defense built to channel the ball toward them. Also, Spikes is a zone cover guy that thrives on reading the QB's eyes. He's not been given as much straight up man coverage in his days at Florida, which would mean that Channing would have to continue being the stronger cover player. There is some thought that if you have these two working the interior then you need at least one stronger cover guy amongst the OLBs...or maybe both. Of course, there is something to be said for that. Denver had Mario Haggan at the strong side spot, and Green Bay had Clay Matthews, both I would say had more versatility coverage-wise than Matt Roth, Jason Taylor or Joey Porter. Manny Lawson's athletic ability came in handy that way in San Francisco.

But anyway, I don't think there's one way to skin a cat in this regard. Crowder's a good player whom I feel takes a beating because he's not a fantastic player. Akin Ayodele and Reggie Torbor are the guys who struggle too often to achieve "mediocre" status. I would start there.

Yea I agree 100%. One thingi have noticed with CC he does a good job taking on the blocks and clogging the whole, doesn't do a good job of playing the runner which is why mostly our S and such get the tackles rather than him. I think he is doing the job of what Akin's spot consists of. Thats why a guy like McClain, Dansby, or Spoon would be very good compliments to CC. I think SPikes, personally, won't work out for this team due to speed, and similar ability to CC and I have a feeling he may be our pick if on teh board which I won't be a fan of until otherwise.