Dynastybuilder
Club Member
The defensive system we're going to employ now is far different than what we've imposed in the past. There are also many ways to generate takeaways, including better coverage and better blitzing. Clearly nobody in the league had an abundance of interest or else we'd be looking at a different return. Kiko is also an aging player that doesn't fit the timeline of the team. I'll always love Kiko's effort, but he's a player that's skillset was incomplete and he didn't fit the team moving forward.Bill Belichick's #1 focus is on winning the Turnover Differential. It's fairly simple and has two major components.
1) Generate a lot of Takeaways.
2) Don't turn over the ball often.
Really is that simple. As for the first part, Takeaways, we have only had one LB in the past decade who really generated many takeaways, and his name was Kiko Alonso. So regardless of whether you like Jerome Baker, Raekwon McMillan, Eguovan (sp?), Van Ginkel, or any other LB … they're not the answer. Why? Because they don't generate many takeaways … none of them. This simply means we'll have to find a LB to replace them that generates takeaways. I'm not advocating for keeping Kiko, he's gone and that was to be expected at his age and salary. Just pointing out that we lose INT's, we lose forced fumbles, and yes, even the easiest stat of all, recovered fumbles.
If we're going to use the Bill Belichick system, we need to implement his #1 focus … and that will require generating more takeaways. Among our current LB's, none of them really do enough of that.
Thank you Kiko for your service and loyalty. Sorry it had to end this way. Good luck in New Orleans.
And to the current Dolphins LB corps., let this serve as your notice, start generating takeaways or you're likely to be replaced.
Best of luck Kiko!