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Backups at ILB

Austin Tatious

Austin Tatious

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We've talked a great deal about our concerns regarding Ferguson's age and whether he can hold up given he missed all of 2007.

But just as concerning is Channing Crowder's backup at the mike linebacker. When he was out against Kansas City, Miami's run defense was atrocious. Frankly, this is a concern.

Akin Ayodele is good in coverage and may have to slide over to mike. But I am not sure how effective he will be. He would have to be. Torbor is a jack of all trades but good at none. He didn't play much last year which is probably telling. There is no evidence that Porter or Roth could slide inside and play mike. Roth is good at the point of attack but not sure that translates to being an ILB. Porter's forte is rushing the passer and not sure he could move inside.

I was hoping that we could find a way to get a guy like Scott McKillop in the draft. He is a rugged read and react guy who can get to the ball. If Crowder is out, I am not sure who fills that role.

I hope that we can answer the question as to who could fill in for Crowder. Otherwise, if he is out for any appreciable amount of time, we may have a ton of trouble stopping the run, which would not bode well for our playoff chances.
 
Worries me too because if either Ayodele or Crowder go down then we are left with Reggie Torbor who is awful and reckless. I think the other player we have is William Kershaw. Maybe Roth could slide over if we suffer from injuries at the ILB position, but that does'nt appeal too much to me either.

Lets just hope we dont get hit by injuries at inside linebacker.
 
We shoulda moved up a couple spots and got R. Maualuga instead of taking White. But hopefully I'm wrong!
 
Honestly, I'm still waiting to see if Bobby Carpenter get cut this offseason. If that happens, I don't see us not signing him.
 
Great point and that's the issue of being in a rebuilding stage for a team. The lack of "quality" depth. At this point the only place we have some solid depth is OLBs, RBs, and maybe DEs. That's pretty much it. O-line - needs more obviously at guard and center, WR - still needs starters, CB - still needs starters, ILBs - questionable, NT - Ferg is getting old.

As optimistic as I am about this season, I think we all realize if we get more than 2 or 3 starters getting injured our season will severely suffer, especially at WR, ILB, or Secondary. We really did well as far as injuries last year and I don' think that was an accident, but yes there was some luck too. Sporano really emphasizes the number of snap counts a player plays. I have never heard a coach talk soooooooo much about number of snaps a player takes. Sporano mentions it ALL the time and stresses its importance. I truly think it makes an unbelievable difference with injuries. When a player is in there too long and is tired, their ability to concentrate decreases dramatically and that 90% of the time leads to injuries. I think our conditioning in the offseason really attributes to it as well as I am sure 99% of people here agree with.
 
Honestly, I am not a fan of Crowders anyway. He makes too many tackles from behind rather than meeting the RB in the hole. He doesn't seem to be the "plug" that you want at MLB in a 3-4.
 
It's just something we're going to have to live with unless Kershaw or Martin turns out to be any good.

That KC game without Crowder, the Chiefs spread the Dolphins out and so Akin was in as the LB in a lot of nickel and dime packages.
 
ckparrothead said:
It's just something we're going to have to live with unless Kershaw or Martin turns out to be any good.

That KC game without Crowder, the Chiefs spread the Dolphins out and so Akin was in as the LB in a lot of nickel and dime packages.
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Exactly. The ones who think that Crowder being out had everything to do with that one bad defensive quarter need to go back and watch the game. The Chiefs definitely spread us out early in that game and the defense adjusted at half time and only gave up 3 points in the second half.

I just can't understand the whole Crowder was out so the defense sucked in KC mentality. It didn't happen that way at all folks.
 
With Bell and Wilson roaming the middle our ILB's should have alot more help. Don't forget that Langford and Merling we're rookies last year and played well enough IMO anyway to lead me to beleive that it will be a little tougher to run on us with a year under their belts. It takes more than ILB's to stuff the run and I believe our FO made the necessary moves to fix the problem.
 
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