Not good. Could be worse, I suppose. But we play Cleveland week 1 and Philly week 2. Losing our third best pass rusher doesn't really help us. Especially considering Ellis is old, slow, and not good in coverage. Spencer is supposed to be getting more and more playing time this year; we could really use him. And it sounds like we could miss him the first two games of the season, possibly.
I'm not worried about having to replace Spencer with a guy who wasn't great in coverage because Spencer was never anything special in coverage either. He's a pass-rush specialist (and a pretty good one too, according to reports out of camp), and Ellis is more than comparable; look at his numbers last year.
Jigga, respectfully, I disagree. Ellis is terrible in coverage. Spencer was anything but terrible last year. In fact, I'd even go as far as to say Spencer's rookie year...he was better in coverage than Ware was. Spencer showed very good coverage skills for a DE transitioning to OLB. Ellis has the pass rush over Spencer right now. But Spencer is better against the run and far better in coverage than Ellis... This is a pretty significant blow...if we are too lose him for a couple of games. Let's hope he is only out 2 weeks.
Perhaps we could (finally) see Bobby in on passing downs? Who knows, maybe this could finally be his "in."
With Burnett's injury, Carpenter has been getting time in the first team dime package defense (maybe nickel, too). But Carpenter has been moved to ILB; so Spencer's injury won't really free up time for Carpenter (unless they decide to sub-package Carp to OLB also). Basically, what it looks like is this: Ware/Walden = WOLB James/Rogers= WILB Thomas/Burnett/Carpenter=SILB Ellis/Spencer=SOLB So... with Burnett out, it gives Carpenter some time... and with Spencer out, it will most likely give Walden some time (as well as some other scrubs)
