I get it. Kiko didn't make a lot of takeaways last year. Good thing _______________ was the LB that did make those takeaways. Fill in the blank. Go ahead … I'll wait.
Everyone was sooooooo excited about getting LAWOLrence Timmons. Not me. I was against it. Dude proved a bad investment. Mr. "impact linebacker" didn't have a positive impact. Or maybe the chorus of people who were defending our LB corps two, three, and four years ago? You know, the people always defending Neville Hewitt or Kelvin Sheppard. Perhaps letting go of Spencer Paysinger, Jelani Jenkins or Donald Butler were mistakes? Face it, we've had tons of suck at LB for a long time. Kiko is the lone bright spot.
He may not be perfect, nobody said he ever was, but the hype machine goes overdrive in favor of any LB not named Kiko. It's absolutely insane how people love to hate on him. When surrounded by competent play, he's a good LB. When surrounded by utter trash, yeah, he gets exposed.
I have a lot of faith in Raekwon McMillan. The kid has the instincts and solid physical tools. I'm excited to see what he brings. But it may be a long time before we see another LB make a lot of takeaways.
This game isn't about consistently generating 3-and-outs. Those days are long gone. The rules are slanted heavily in favor of the offense. Today it's about making those exceptional plays and generating takeaways. It is a rare team that can dominate on defense enough to break that pattern … and we are definitely not that team.
So go ahead, watch a kid run fast and proclaim him the next Patrick Willis or Luke Kuechly. But playing LB today is nearly impossible, and there aren't many of those guys, despite the hype. Being big enough to thump a Leonard Fournette, stack and shed a Zack Martin, and then have enough size to match up against a Gronkowski one down and the quickness to cover an Edelman the next … that is nearly an impossible ask athletically. And, LB remains more of an instinctual position than an athletic position. Finding those high level athletes that have those instincts is extremely rare. And virtually none of those athletes can do the thumping and stack/shed part anymore. The modern LB is easily exploited, because the only trait they typically have is speed. Power games blow them up consistently. intricate plays baffle the lion's share of these glorified safeties masquerading as linebackers today.
Before we completely throw our only decent linebacker to the scrap heap … just realize the state of the linebacker position today. When we're running a 4-3 exclusively with quick-twitch penetrators along the DL and not even trying to keep our LB's clean, don't be surprised when those LB's don't stop the run. When our secondary is playing off coverage a lot and our DL isn't getting quick pressure, don't be surprised that our LB's are exposed in coverage. And when you get rid of Kiko and our LB corps generates virtually no turnovers … just remember, that's what you wanted. This board consistently overrates the Jelani Jenkins of the league for absolutely no reason.