Our Secondary Last Year

[Butterfrog 2.0]

I know a lot of you think that Schulters was our most consistent DB last year, but I think that is very far from the truth. Let me put it this way.....Travis Daniels had a Brilliant rookie season for a CB, Sam Madison had very very good second half of the season, and he really wasn't bad at all the first half either. Now our secondary got killed a bunch of games, and it was mainly due to the safety position, if Daniels and Madison both had good years, do you think ALL our secondary woes were from Reggie Howard......NO!!!! Lance was inconsitent at best, he made some very good plays but then made some very bad plays, and the worst plays I saw out of our secondary all year had Lance right in the spotlight. I think Either Allen or Bell wil be an upgrade there both are faster, and just as good at tackling from what I have seen. Now for CB I'm loving what I see because I believe Will Allen is an upgrade over Madison, and I also think Will Poole will be starting which as good as Travis Daniles looked last year as a rookie, I think most of you have forgot how great Poole looked in his rookie season. The guy was pretty much a shadow in coverage, and he was/is a punishing tackler for a CB(anyone remember him ligthing up our RB's in camp that year, and everyone complaining about how could a rookie CB be punking our backs like that???) So anyway our secondary was average last year, and this year I see upgrades pretty much all acorss the board........ This should be fun!!!

 

[jreg1]

I know a lot of you think that Schulters was our most consistent DB last year, but I think that is very far from the truth. Let me put it this way.....Travis Daniels had a Brilliant rookie season for a CB, Sam Madison had very very good second half of the season, and he really wasn't bad at all the first half either. Now our secondary got killed a bunch of games, and it was mainly due to the safety position, if Daniels and Madison both had good years, do you think ALL our secondary woes were from Reggie Howard......NO!!!! Lance was inconsitent at best, he made some very good plays but then made some very bad plays, and the worst plays I saw out of our secondary all year had Lance right in the spotlight. I think Either Allen or Bell wil be an upgrade there both are faster, and just as good at tackling from what I have seen. Now for CB I'm loving what I see because I believe Will Allen is an upgrade over Madison, and I also think Will Poole will be starting which as good as Travis Daniles looked last year as a rookie, I think most of you have forgot how great Poole looked in his rookie season. The guy was pretty much a shadow in coverage, and he was/is a punishing tackler for a CB(anyone remember him ligthing up our RB's in camp that year, and everyone complaining about how could a rookie CB be punking our backs like that???) So anyway our secondary was average last year, and this year I see upgrades pretty much all acorss the board........ This should be fun!!!

i agree totally about lance!! i am tired of lance getting a pass on here! he made the one nice play vs carolina and a few others but not enough to say he was the best thing we had.

 

[Spray Mucus]

do you think ALL our secondary woes were from Reggie Howard......NO!!!! Lance was inconsitent at best, he made some very good plays but then made some very bad plays, and the worst plays I saw out of our secondary all year had Lance right in the spotlight.

Although I agree with Shulter's being inconsistant, on an average, Reggie Howard was smoked a lot more than Shculters, not to mention how Reggie's penalties hurt us too.

So although Lance made some mistakes, I wouldn't go as far as laying most of the blame on him for our secondary woes.

Now to tackle the Poole debate, I loved the kids fire as a rook. He was always going after the ball, he hit hard and showed decent cover skills as a nickle back. But before you go and pencil in Poole over TD, you have to keep in mind TD was the starter last year, to my memory was only burned once last year, and has a good handle on Saban's sytem. Poole will be one year removed from football recovering from a knee injury.

Poole will make this team no doubt, but I'm thinking more as a nickle or quite possibly as a Safety. Since Saban doesn't like to use the term Free/Strong safety, and uses the term Safety 1 and safety 2.

 

[Dolfan11]

Although I agree with Shulter's being inconsistant, on an average, Reggie Howard was smoked a lot more than Shculters, not to mention how Reggie's penalties hurt us too.

So although Lance made some mistakes, I wouldn't go as far as laying most of the blame on him for our secondary woes.

Now to tackle the Poole debate, I loved the kids fire as a rook. He was always going after the ball, he hit hard and showed decent cover skills as a nickle back. But before you go and pencil in Poole over TD, you have to keep in mind TD was the starter last year, to my memory was only burned once last year, and has a good handle on Saban's sytem. Poole will be one year removed from football recovering from a knee injury.

Poole will make this team no doubt, but I'm thinking more as a nickle or quite possibly as a Safety. Since Saban doesn't like to use the term Free/Strong safety, and uses the term Safety 1 and safety 2.

I think Howard's penalties were a big part of it to, and so was him getting burned 85% of the time. Then why is everyone in favor of a player who commits an absurd amount of penalties, starting on our OL. Rex Hadnot. The times I remember him playing last season, he was getting calls left and right. I couldn't believe the amount of calls he was getting. I wanted him off the team, but everyone here seems optomistic about him. Guess he has some potential to be a starter, as long as he cuts out the bullsh!t. Same thing with Wade Smith. The guy did nothing but get burned at the tackles positio.

 

[DoLpHiNz34]

I agree with you about Lance and our safeties in general for the past few years. The safety position has been, in my opinion, the achilles heel of this D for a while.

 

[DoLpHiNz34]

But before you go and pencil in Poole over TD, you have to keep in mind TD was the starter last year, to my memory was only burned once last year, and has a good handle on Saban's sytem.

I'm with you for the most part of your post but wasn't it TD that was covering Lee Evans the game he exploded on us? Something like three TDs in the first 5 minutes of the game...

 

[LarryFinFan]

Although I agree with Shulter's being inconsistant, on an average, Reggie Howard was smoked a lot more than Shculters, not to mention how Reggie's penalties hurt us too.

So although Lance made some mistakes, I wouldn't go as far as laying most of the blame on him for our secondary woes.

Now to tackle the Poole debate, I loved the kids fire as a rook. He was always going after the ball, he hit hard and showed decent cover skills as a nickle back. But before you go and pencil in Poole over TD, you have to keep in mind TD was the starter last year, to my memory was only burned once last year, and has a good handle on Saban's sytem. Poole will be one year removed from football recovering from a knee injury.

Poole will make this team no doubt, but I'm thinking more as a nickle or quite possibly as a Safety. Since Saban doesn't like to use the term Free/Strong safety, and uses the term Safety 1 and safety 2.

Well, I think in coverage skills, Poole definitely holds the edge over Daniels...I am convinced that Daniels was drafted to be our S last year, not CB...He did have a very good season.

Schulters and Howard's biggest problems were that they didn't buy into Saban's scheme quick enough. Had they done that in the first half of the season things would have been different for us. Some of Howard's problems were that he was a victim of other people not doing their jobs. In most of the situations, where it looked like he was 'out of position', it was Schulters some and more often Jones that was out of position making him look like he'd taken bad angles and such. That's not to say that Howard was squeaky clean, but our S play had a lot to do with our poor coverage packages (both nickel and dime). I've made this statement before and taken some heat from the Howard haters...we certainly overpaid for him, but only because he was brought in here by Mr. Inept-at-personnel, Dave Wanny to be a cover corner, which he is not...he is suited very well to the cover-2, which we played more of with Saban, but he wasn't the CB in those situations last year...he was the 3rd or 4th CB...It is a trade that we should just leave in the past now that he's gone because it didn't work for us or for him...

I think we'll see the two Will's at corner and Jason and Travis as safeties....a lot more athletic, better tacklers, and faster at every position than last year. Poole might be the exception. He and Daniels are about the same speed, so we won't really lose there. Bell, Hill and Goodman are pretty good as well. In fact, Hill could really push at any of the positions...Cooper is solid and more of a traditional SS that Saban doesn't use a lot of, but he's solid as well. That would leave Mitchell possibly out in the cold again. He's not a bad CB either and does have good return skills, which could work in his favor bumping a Bell or Goodman...it's going to be very interesting if more than one or two of the "camp" guys...like Mitchell or Bell show well too....

 

[Bowl_Bound]

I agree on both accounts CB and S. Daniels played extremely well last year but if Poole and Allen are going to be as good as stated does that mean daniels plays nickel?

 

[D-PHINS06]

Our DB's will be great since we have so many tryin to get starting positions.
when are we gonna fix that hole in our LB CORE left by JUNIOR??