Yes, I've been saying how bad our LB's are. Everyone was slagging Kiko last year and I kept telling people he was covering for other LB's blown assignments. Well, he wasn't there to cover for Baker and McMillan this year … and you saw the result. Yes Baker, the guy everyone thinks is on the verge of being an All-Pro (what a joke), is HORRIBLE at run defense … and we keep hoping he gets better, but he's definitely not there yet.
I cut Raekwon McMillan a little slack, because he was injured and not able to practice for so long, it's going to be harder for him to get adjusted to this defense. And, the defense is not really a good scheme fit for McMillan, so he's going to struggle more already. Eguaveon (sp?) flashed some plays, but he was very poor as well. The whole LB corps sucked.
And the most important statistic, we came up goose eggs. ZERO takeaways from the LB's. Remember, our stalwart guy for INT's, Forced Fumbles and Recovered Fumbles was Kiko. He wasn't replaced. I predicted that we'd be drafting a new LB high next year to fill that gaping hole in the LB corps with someone who could generate Bill Belichick's #1 statistic--Turnover Differential.
Bill Belichick funnels the runs inside and has LB's who stop the run. He prioritizes takeaways more than yardage. We proved we're fundamentally bad at both. These need to change for this very effective defense to work. It has to start with LB's who can stop the run and produce takeaways … and our current LB's cannot do either.
