Tampa finally made an attempt to sign a younger player to be on there team with the acquisition of ian gold. This player is a solid player at weakside linebacker, where he has adequate size at best. Unfortunately for the bucs he is unlikely to supplant Derrick Brooks for that position. So gold will compete for a spot on the strong side, where he extremely undersized and wont hold up well vs the run. With carolina as the division winner being a power running team it seems the bucs would want to bring in some players who could stop the run. If gold starts at strongside backer for the bucs it will spell disaster for this defense trying to stop the run.
yes, good point and now that john lynch and warrenn sapp are gone, they are small and undersized against the run. with runners like TJ Duckett, Warrick Dunn, Vick, DAvis, Foster and Deuce McCalister in the division they are all big(except dunn,and foster, and vick would be stupid if he runs as much as he did 2 years ago) thats alot of beef, and it looks like the bucs are trying to do what the eagles did last year were we picked up small players with speed to gang tackle and for us it worked in the begining of the year but turned into hell for us. well see
Actually rumor is quarles will be moved back to strong side and gold will be moved to the middle. Way monte kiffin uses our linebackers weve always been undersized. Its our way of generating speed vs the qb,rb and the pass. Dawk with sapp and lynch gone how does that make us small on the d? Did you forget we signed former probowl dt darrell russell to replace sapp. We drafted marquies cooper to fill lynch's spot possibly if jermaine phillips doesnt do well which he will like dwight smith did. Actually if all else goes well with russell and gold we may have one deadly fast defense that weve always had. Im not convinced on the panthers bears they lost some major players on the offensive line. They could barley beat a battered tampa team last year with alot of its major components to make our team succesful over the years. In fact both games we should of won but had our special teams let us down. Tampa will be the team to beat in the south why, cause we are 100 percent again and we have filled our holes with better players. Yes lynch and sapp will be missed but russell is not a bad replacment if he can stay out of trouble. Besides we have the leaders on this team to set examples for the younger players on the def. Watch out for dwayne white he looks exactly like sapp in his younger days, he brings that sapp energy to the defense with that speed.
oh my god, ian gold as a middle linebacker is preposterous. he would never hold up at point of attack. he will be crushed. bowled over and crumpled on turf. he wont last 10 games. The panthers will just line up strong I and power run right at him, russel is average at best vs run, and mcfarland is mediocre too, simeon rice is getting a little better, and they will just away from brooks. quarles is a stiff, at best. this defense is in a lot of trouble vs the run. A lot of trouble.
bears lol no chance this defense is still one of the best in the nfl. All we did was get much faster, monte kiffin's scemes would never allow us to get run over. Warren sapp was never good vs the run. In fact he was weak so avg vs the run in russell is a upgrade. Were actually in good shape. Panthers will come bck to reality for a simple reason. If you cant stop the pass rush you will not be able to go far. This year i guarentee delhome gets banged around by teams. Stephen davis will also be stuffed alot. Passing on dj williams now makes sense. Ian gold was on our radar.
i said darrell russell was average, i think sapp was better vs run because he was taking on two blocks which russell wont, mcfarland will now in under position. scheme is weak vs run and so are the players, team will just get manhandle all year. cant run or stop the run
Nate Webster (Quarles' back up @ MLB) signed up another team. The Bengals if I recall. The question, on my mind, is what about depth? Losing Lynch will hurt. I have to agree that Gold at anything other than WLB is a mistake. Didn't they sign some yahoo to replace Singleton @ SLB? Just a thought, what about Brooks @ MLB & Gold @ WLB. Doesn't Tampa go w/ a nickle package where Barber moves to the slot and Blitzes frequently anyway? Tampa's run D never has been overly impressive IMO. Monte Kiffin is a magician & will tweak the scheme to take advantage of the personnel he has. So, in theory, Tampa's D may not miss much. Executing it will be another story. Further, I don't think that Carolina will totally crash & burn. I agree that Carolina's O Line is questionable. Teams figured out how to stop Ricky and concur that S. Davis will not have the success he did last year. It will be interesting to see if Foster wins the job and how SD will take to be the backup/change of pace.
Continuuing my previous post; I thought at one point, in Denver, Gold was the SLB and Mobley was the weakside backer. They switched before the 2002 season and thats when Denver's D became real tough.
gold played primarly on special teams before 2001, he is a good backer at his best, and probably below average anywhere but weak side
Ryan neece is the guy who stepped in and filled singltons shoes, he didnt do a bad job eithier. Depth at saftey im not sure, i know we really like jermaine phillips at ss, also we did draft a linebacker with some speed that played ss and then jumped to lb in college. We also drafted a saftey from ohio st who the coaches and scouts really like will allen. As for quarles, brooks and gold switching spots i wouldnt doubt one is moved to a new postion. Im sure we have a agenda for gold tho he did sign a 5 year deal. I myself think brooks to move to ss gold ws and quarles to stay at middle would work, i love the speed.
I can't wait to see who's right about this debate. The only thing I can add is that I agree with Bucs about Sapp. Watching him play, he isn't much of a run stopper, well below average. He's only getting double-teamed on pass plays, not run plays. That would be a waste of time.
I think a lot of people would love to see your plan bucs of moving brooks to SS. Every team who plays the bucs during the year. He is a great player and a above average coverage linebacker, but if he plays SS he will be less effective vs run, and get killed in coverage, he is not capable of playing that position. I think signing gold was the 2nd dumbest signing of free agency not taking into account dollars paid.
I believe the term "ss" refered to the Strong Side LB position....but if he meant Strong Safety, then thats crazy...
that makes more sense beef, thank you, you are right, i still do not think brooks would be effective on the strong side linebacker, he is smaller than gold. however please disregard commentary on brooks playing strong safety.
