3rd Round Jerome Baker | Page 11 | FinHeaven - Miami Dolphins Forums

3rd Round Jerome Baker

While I agree with you there on the size of modern day LBs getting smaller, how many of those guys are SAM backers? if we drafted him to be Kiko's replacement at Will, thats fine, but then wth do we do with Kiko? pay him to ride the bench? move him to SAM? I just dont get using a 3rd on a guy who plays a position we already have, not to mention, what does this mean about TJ moving to play LB in nickel/dime? this guy appears similar to what TJ would do when he moves to LB, cause that is 100% happening now that we got Fitz...
Bro, look at the jags d, Dallas, Falcons, strong side is not dictated by size anymore, lbs have become interchangeable, 250 lbs aren't in play any more. 60 percent of the the time defenses are in nickel to match the the offenses. All 3 safeties with be on the field bro, in a heavy nickel or tj or RJ at the nickel lb next to baker. Does that make sense, or maybe even a 3-3-5 defense which I would love
 
From what Grier said, definitely envisioned as a WILL. Specifically mentioned needing to be covered by a lineman so he can read and react. Optimistic about this pick, speed and instinct are always a good combo

Definitely a WILL....

But when Booker went down with a knee injury against the Falcons, Baker’s responsibilities grew as he slid into the Buckeyes’ starting Will linebacker spot. Two weeks later, he’d get his first true “welcome to college football” moment, intercepting Heisman Trophy finalist Baker Mayfield and returning the ball 68 yards for a touchdown in Ohio State’s 45-24 win at Oklahoma.

In the same game, he also posted the first sack of his college career.[QUOTE/]
 
I am excited to see my Buckeyes at LB this year. I've waited so long to root for some Ohio Stae kids.
 
Deeply moved by the video of Jerome Baker getting his name called, above. This was clearly a natural family moment and it tells me that there's a lot of love for Jerome.
 
Last edited:
Life long Dolphins and Buckeye fan, so i was really interested in reading this thread to see what the opinions about Baker are. Figured I would share my two cents about Baker and provide some more insight.

Baker was a standout on both sides of the ball in high school and there was some debate about whether he would be a RB, LB, or Safety. OSU was deep at RB at the time with future high round draft picks (Zeke Elliott and Curtis Samuel) and Baker became a little too big for safety. Luckily, OSU's defense has implemented a hybrid LB aka Walkout LB for the past few years. This position is crucial to defend spread offenses and requires a player who is athletic enough to covers TE, slots, RB while still defending the run. Darren Lee (former 1st round pick of the Jets) is the "gold standard" for the Hybrid LB at OSU and he was a vital part of the reason why OSU won the national championship in 2014 and only lost one game on 2015. Baker was seen as the logical replacement for Lee heading into the 2016 season mainly due to highlight reel interception during the spring game. But, he was beaten out by Chris Worely (recently signed as a UDFA by the Bengals) mainly due to seniority and the fact the Worley was close to beating out Lee prior to the 2014 season. Baker did not spend much time on the bench because one of their Strong Side LB Dante Booker suffered a knee injury and OSU decided to put their three best LB on the field. Baker to advantage of his opportunity, notching big INT's against Oklahoma and That Team Up North and making other big plays throughout the season. Many OSU fans expected Baker to build on his 2016 season and follow in the footsteps of Darren Lee and be a 1st round draft pick.

Baker was unable to match his production/ performance in 2017 and his flaws have been widely discussed in the previous posts. I will say that Baker was one of the most frustrating Buckeyes to watch, but there are some factors that contributed to his disappoint performance. By far, the biggest factor was changes within the defensive coaching staff. Luke Fickell, co - DC and LB coach, left OSU to become the head coach at the University of Cincinnati. Fickell was replaced by Bill Davis, longtime NFL coach with experience coaching linebackers and calling defenses. He seemed like a logical replacement, but it did not work our for whatever reason and LB play was a season long Achilles heel. If you need visual evidence, go watch the games versus Oklahoma or Iowa and you will see the LB's out of position and unaware of what was going on. Also, Davis struggled to find a good combination of LB's to put on the field. OSU started Baker at Hybrid LB, Worley at Mike, and Booker at SAM. Worley was always undersized for a Mike and Booker is a perfect example of looking like Tarzan, but playing like Jane. All three of the LB's missed time due to injuries and OSU somewhat settled on starting lineup of Baker, Tuf Borland (Great name for a LB, no relation to former LB Chris Borland), and Worley. Booker did not play the last few games and they added in another LB, Malik Harrison, to the rotation. The LB play got better and Baker had his best game of the season in the Big Ten Championship game against Wisconsin. Also, there were rumors and scuttlebutt that Baker had his eye's on the NFL and was playing not to get hurt, instead of giving his all. Not sure how much I believe those rumors, but it could have impacted his play.

Baker has his flaws, but he has a very specific skill set that could be valuable to our D. I hope this insight was helpful and my glasses did not have to much of a scarlet tint to them.
 
One thing is certain. We will certainly have competition this year at LB. Gase insists that Kiko was often trying to compensate for blown assignments from other players in coverage last year. He certainly looked much better in 2016 at Mike.

Stephone Anthony does not seem to be in their long term plans since they declined his 5th year option BUT it's not like they haven't been wrong before when it comes to acquisitions, keeping a better player on the bench, etc.

He came in VERY late last year and had to learn the system. He will have a full off-season to prepare. He didn't really get any meaningful snaps until late November but flashed when he did get in the game. He seemed to always be around the ball.

I hope it's true that TJ and Baker will compete for a starting spot on the weak side. I give TJ the edge here due to his experience, even if it was as a DB. I could see Baker getting more snaps as the season goes on similar to Anthony last year.

Can't wait to get a look at McMillan as the Mike. Robert Quinn has something to prove. No reason he can't get back to being a dominant player. He will be 28 in 11 days. He has the potential to offer more (opposite Wake) than any player Cam has played with...including Vernon. (JT was nearing the end or playing in NY when Wake got started).

I hope the LB's do not suffer from DT play. Wondering who is going to command double teams. This will only be an issue in the run game as Wake and Quinn will get most of the attention in passing situations.... which really exposed opposing offense to blitzing LB's and DB's.

I think Burke is a smart guy and will have this team playing more as a unit this year due to a small change in philosophy, more versatile players, faster players, healthier players and experience. We now have the personnel to operate several more packages and not be so vanilla.
 
Stephone Anthony does not seem to be in their long term plans since they declined his 5th year option BUT it's not like they haven't been wrong before when it comes to acquisitions, keeping a better player on the bench, etc.
The Dolphins declining Anthony's 5th year option has more to do with money than it does Stephone's ability.
Picking up Anthony’s option would have made his 2019 salary around $9.2 million. That amount would be guaranteed against injury as soon as Miami picked up the option. The team would still be able to rescind the option before the start of the next league year, but were the Dolphins ever going to consider Anthony a linebacker worthy of a $9.2 million salary, a salary that would put him among the top twelve of linebackers?
https://www.thephinsider.com/2018/5/3/17314920/why-was-stephone-anthonys-fifth-year-option-declined
 
Life long Dolphins and Buckeye fan, so i was really interested in reading this thread to see what the opinions about Baker are. Figured I would share my two cents about Baker and provide some more insight.

Baker was a standout on both sides of the ball in high school and there was some debate about whether he would be a RB, LB, or Safety. OSU was deep at RB at the time with future high round draft picks (Zeke Elliott and Curtis Samuel) and Baker became a little too big for safety. Luckily, OSU's defense has implemented a hybrid LB aka Walkout LB for the past few years. This position is crucial to defend spread offenses and requires a player who is athletic enough to covers TE, slots, RB while still defending the run. Darren Lee (former 1st round pick of the Jets) is the "gold standard" for the Hybrid LB at OSU and he was a vital part of the reason why OSU won the national championship in 2014 and only lost one game on 2015. Baker was seen as the logical replacement for Lee heading into the 2016 season mainly due to highlight reel interception during the spring game. But, he was beaten out by Chris Worely (recently signed as a UDFA by the Bengals) mainly due to seniority and the fact the Worley was close to beating out Lee prior to the 2014 season. Baker did not spend much time on the bench because one of their Strong Side LB Dante Booker suffered a knee injury and OSU decided to put their three best LB on the field. Baker to advantage of his opportunity, notching big INT's against Oklahoma and That Team Up North and making other big plays throughout the season. Many OSU fans expected Baker to build on his 2016 season and follow in the footsteps of Darren Lee and be a 1st round draft pick.

Baker was unable to match his production/ performance in 2017 and his flaws have been widely discussed in the previous posts. I will say that Baker was one of the most frustrating Buckeyes to watch, but there are some factors that contributed to his disappoint performance. By far, the biggest factor was changes within the defensive coaching staff. Luke Fickell, co - DC and LB coach, left OSU to become the head coach at the University of Cincinnati. Fickell was replaced by Bill Davis, longtime NFL coach with experience coaching linebackers and calling defenses. He seemed like a logical replacement, but it did not work our for whatever reason and LB play was a season long Achilles heel. If you need visual evidence, go watch the games versus Oklahoma or Iowa and you will see the LB's out of position and unaware of what was going on. Also, Davis struggled to find a good combination of LB's to put on the field. OSU started Baker at Hybrid LB, Worley at Mike, and Booker at SAM. Worley was always undersized for a Mike and Booker is a perfect example of looking like Tarzan, but playing like Jane. All three of the LB's missed time due to injuries and OSU somewhat settled on starting lineup of Baker, Tuf Borland (Great name for a LB, no relation to former LB Chris Borland), and Worley. Booker did not play the last few games and they added in another LB, Malik Harrison, to the rotation. The LB play got better and Baker had his best game of the season in the Big Ten Championship game against Wisconsin. Also, there were rumors and scuttlebutt that Baker had his eye's on the NFL and was playing not to get hurt, instead of giving his all. Not sure how much I believe those rumors, but it could have impacted his play.

Baker has his flaws, but he has a very specific skill set that could be valuable to our D. I hope this insight was helpful and my glasses did not have to much of a scarlet tint to them.

In fairness to Baker, I saw first hand with Michigan how an ill advised hire can ruin chemistry. Greg Frey as a Inside Zone OL guy teamed with Drevno as a power guy ruined Michigan's OL last year. So that is a good point. I just don't think Baker is ready at this point. I saw some pretty mediocre QBs in the Big 10 do work against Baker... though in fairness to him he was at his best against the best QBs he'd face.
 
Always seems to be in om the play. Good reaction time and agility.

Well, it's a highlight, lol. So yeah he's always in on the play on the highlight. The reason I post it is because we need to see what the Dolphins see for him. Bill Parcells used to say, show me what the guy CAN do, don't show me what the guy can't do. We need to see what he's capable of when given the opportunity and if he were to be more consistent. If the guy at his best isn't that impressive, it's a red flag.
 
Well, it's a highlight, lol. So yeah he's always in on the play on the highlight. The reason I post it is because we need to see what the Dolphins see for him. Bill Parcells used to say, show me what the guy CAN do, don't show me what the guy can't do. We need to see what he's capable of when given the opportunity and if he were to be more consistent. If the guy at his best isn't that impressive, it's a red flag.
I know he was a "sure tackler" in college. But do you worry about his grab and hold on style holding up in the NFL? Never seems to be an umph behind his tackles.
 
Well, it's a highlight, lol. So yeah he's always in on the play on the highlight. The reason I post it is because we need to see what the Dolphins see for him. Bill Parcells used to say, show me what the guy CAN do, don't show me what the guy can't do. We need to see what he's capable of when given the opportunity and if he were to be more consistent. If the guy at his best isn't that impressive, it's a red flag.

So what does that mean? Do you see him as impressive here? I see him athletic and he recognizes plays and is able to shed blockers to get in the backfield. And he can cover, or so it seems.

But I also see that he is not a thumper, which will only be more noticeable at the next level I imagine, and I also noticed he gets absorbed by blockers during run plays right at him.

It seems he could work on both issues by adding bulk. He doesn't seem lights out great but he does seem like he could be better than our current linebackers.
 
Back
Top Bottom