The Defensive Line Thread - Who makes the cut?

[skinny21]

Asked this in a different thread, but any thoughts as to why Mbu seems to line up a yard off the ball?

[RandyHolt]

I will speculate @skinny21 - Mbu is off the ball so OL cannot get their hands on him while largely standing still. Maybe he needs that extra space to decide what gap to shoot in what I call our 1.5 hybrid gap control  Maybe we are doing that to bait offenses, to get an OL to move up to create a lane for others to shoot through. Perhaps it is an experiment of sorts, since its obviously very rare. I will have to watch for it in game 4.

 

So, who is our NT now?  I am going to guess someone with ties to Maryland.  I will predict Mbu since he seemed to be coming on after perusing TSO's fine work.  Francis just a hair behind him. Hood is maybe a lock now, with Taylor out.  Time for a DL new depth chart OK 3-4 and 4-3 this time.

 

3-4 (guess city)

Allen McGee Hood

Mbu Francis

McClain Ioannidis Lanier

 

4-2

Allen Hood

Ioannidis Lanier

 

Arg the skins depth chart code still suuuuuucks. Click Defense, click OK, click a player, go back. and it resets to offense? Maybe 10 years from now they will have the 3 charts all on one page like all the other teams do, oh we'll scrap the 3-4.

[skinzplay]

It's a sign of progress that we aren't left scratching our heads wondering whether and why Kedric Golston has made yet another final cut. We have some good options along the line, and I like Scot's acquisition plan that the team followed for the line. Hate to see what's happened to Taylor. Dude looked good, and on his way to a comeback til that injury. Wonder if the team will have the same patience with him as it's had with Galette. Let's see what Tomsula can do with Mbu.

[TSO]

6 hours ago, RandyHolt said:

So, who is our NT now?  I am going to guess someone with ties to Maryland.  I will predict Mbu since he seemed to be coming on after perusing TSO's fine work.  Francis just a hair behind him. Hood is maybe a lock now, with Taylor out.  Time for a DL new depth chart OK 3-4 and 4-3 this time.

 

 Yes, it was all me.  

 

Honestly? I take Francis over Mbu every time if we're judging it off preseason play. Coaches see way more in practice and it looks like Mbu was winning going into Training Camp... but Francis has been much better. It's not even close, really. 

 

Interestingly enough, as soon as Taylor went down it was Francis, not Mbu, who replaced him with the first team at NT. I think that says a lot. 

[skinny21]

@thesubmittedonesince you're our man studying the dline... do you have any thoughts about Mbu lining up off the line?  It seems like it's every snap, but I could well be wrong.  (heck, I'm second guessing myself that it's even Mbu doing it, lol).  Never seen it before and it doesn't seem like it can be coaching.  

[TSO]

6 minutes ago, skinny21 said:

@thesubmittedonesince you're our man studying the dline... do you have any thoughts about Mbu lining up off the line?  It seems like it's every snap, but I could well be wrong.  (heck, I'm second guessing myself that it's even Mbu doing it, lol).  Never seen it before and it doesn't seem like it can be coaching.  

 

Honestly, I haven't noticed. But that could totally be on me and you saw something there I didn't. I've got to look at it, again. 

 

But, yeah, if that's the case that's odd. He's "lost" a lot of one on one battles where he's the guy pushed back the furthest on the Dline... but maybe that's because he's lining up like that? 

[LaRonDontLikeUgly]

After the super sad news about Phil Taylor yesterday, I grabbed a bottle of Makers Mark and decided to go back and watch every defensive snap (several times over) from the Week 3 preseason game against the Bengals.  (As one of my buddies called it,  I was "Gametapin' the Scotty McC way!")

 

Anyway, I'm no Front-7 expert by any means so just take this as one man telling you what his eyes told him based on ONE preseason game....

 

McClain - Tremendous power/push off the ball... Often drove his lineman straight back or took him into the direction of choice-- also commanded double teams on more than one occasion.  HOWEVER, it seems like his ability to read plays is just non-existent.  He over-committed every time he was in the game, leaving gaping holes for the rushing attack and gave the QB ample space/time to slide the pocket due to poor angles.  After replacing Taylor initially, it seemed to me that after a few plays McClain had pissed the coaches off because he was quickly benched and didn't see much action for what seemed like a very long time.

 

Hood -  Almost the complete opposite of McClain...  Seems to have great instincts/feel for the ball, but unfortunately his body can't do what his mind wants it to do.  Ziggy was pushed around like a child on every single play--- it was very odd to watch especially considering his strong workout habits.  His football IQ seems to put him in the right place which (even if you are getting rag-dolled and still creating some traffic in the right hole/lane) doesn't make him a total liability. 

McGee - 5 years $25mill ??  Are you ****ing kidding me?  Wow.  Maybe the least impressive player I watched during the entire game.  No explosion, no push... was a complete non-factor on every snap.  Not a single flash of anything positive that I could see.  Extremely frustrating when you consider that we had the cap space to re-sign Baker (he's essentially getting 16mill over 3 years with an option to release him after one year... if we were cut McGee in his 3rd season he still gets something like 15.6mill-- although the way it's structured now it looks like he will get 10mill guaranteed for 2 years and then we will eat 2.4 mill in dead cap.  Lovely. 

 

Ioannidis -  Definitely looks like a massively-improved player with the potential of being a great rotational lineman for the Skins.  Nice push off the ball, decent "jump" off the line, seemed to know where plays were headed.  He's definitely not the fastest or strongest around- but for a guy who appear to have somewhat of a "stiff" frame, he seems to play with good leverage and some surprising athleticism. 

 

Allen - Not a great game for Jon, but I've seen enough of his college tape sprinkled with some flashes in preseason thus far that I'm not worried.  His jump off the line is great-- you can almost always count on him being the first guy in the DL to pop off the line as soon as the ball is snapped.  Again, this was not a very good performance today and I actually saw him take one play completely off as Dalton was driving the ball down our throats.  I believe there will be Pro Bowls in his future, but anyone hoping for that this year may be disappointed. 

AJ Francis -  This was the guy I was most curious about because I had literally never seen anything on him before in my life.  Spoke to some Gonzaga and UMD buddies who have been watching him for a long time and not a single one seemed excited about Francis... which seemed odd to me... local guy whose 6'5 337 and zero excitement/praise.... AT ALL?  (Hmm, maybe my boys are just haters.)  I thought Francis had a good game- obviously he had the fumble recovery but he was completely unblocked and it was more a right place/right time kind of thing on that particular play.  However, I noticed he was getting some forward push off the ball- he's definitely a big boy.  On two different occasions he stretched the field to the sidelines preventing the runner from cutting back and allowing the linebackers/secondary to make the tackle. He looks funny when he runs, but nice hustle.  On the Bengals' goaline touchdown he got blown up, but so did the rest of the defense.

 

Mbu - Flashed some great moves.  I saw a swim-move in there and collapsed the pocket with what seemed like great athleticism.  I hadn't seen anything from this guy before, but it seems like the excitement around him (on ES at least) has dimmed down lately.  Will be looking for more in Week 4.

 

Lanier - Really didn't get a good read on him this game.  He was playing later in the game and by this time I was bored and the Makers bottle was empty.

 

Gallette - I recorded every single one of his snaps on my phone and sent them out to my buddies.  Wow!  This guy is super exciting.  I cannot remember us having an edge rusher with this much speed/bend + assortment of moves.  If Junior stays healthy he could easily be our best player on defense.  The fact that he says he's not 100% yet says even more about what I saw.  Had it not been for the quick 3-step drops, he would have been in there wreaking serious game-changing havoc.  One of my favorite plays from him during the day was when he fluidly dropped back into coverage on a screen pass, slipped passed two downfield blockers and made the tackle.

Kerrigan - Solid as usual but was getting held all game.  They finally called a penalty.

 

Preston -  Looked better than what I saw last year.  Going back to his college tape, I always felt like he was a more effective rusher from the outside going back in through the middle.  He's got a good ability to find lanes in there and I saw it a few times during the game.  Nice coverage on another play.  Overall pretty solid performance from Preston I thought.

 

 

Other defensive notes/things:  Spaight was all over the place against the 2's... played a great game for the most part.  Breeland I thought played brilliantly- easily our best DB in this game.  We haven't really seen Swearinger in coverage, but so far I love him.  Zach Brown is a major upgrade and I feel like his play has elevated Mason Foster.  On special teams, Compton made two GREAT plays on punt returns-- awesome to see a team guy who loses his starting position but sucks it up and goes even harder on ST.

 

[skinny21]

53 minutes ago, thesubmittedone said:

 

Honestly, I haven't noticed. But that could totally be on me and you saw something there I didn't. I've got to look at it, again. 

 

But, yeah, if that's the case that's odd. He's "lost" a lot of one on one battles where he's the guy pushed back the furthest on the Dline... but maybe that's because he's lining up like that? 

Cool man, let me know what you see/think.  ?

 

@LaRonDontLikeUglygood stuff, thanks for sharing man!

[RandyHolt]

@LaRonDontLikeUgly awesome write up!  You have earned yourself another Makers to kick off the season proper.

 

I especially liked the part that Hood and McClain are opposites. I am theorizing that McClain is being allowed to 1 gap and it uses him to his strengths, even if it means he is taking himself out of the play at times. Gruden praised him recently, so he is likely doing exactly what is asked of him.

 

McGee will be our modern day Phil Daniels, or heh ok maybe a backup to him. Stout 3-4 LE that is never going to wow anyone.

 

Francis seems the likely starting NT. Winner winner chicken dinner to whoever predicted our starting 3, heck even a week ago.

 

Did Junior Galette really play, or was that the makers talking

[TSO]

@LaRonDontLikeUgly I'll say your assessment almost completely matches mine, from what I've seen throughout the preseason regarding my focus on the Dline. 

 

I might part with you slightly on McGee... I'd give him a slightly better grade than you overall and don't think he's been a liability, but I agree, he hasn't been truly impactful. 

 

McClain, you're spot on. Noticed it a few times against the Packers where he's just unsure of himself. Hopefully he can start "getting it", because you do see flashes of talent there. 

 

Your assessment of Hood is brilliant, by the way. Better than I ever stated. My assessment was more based on removing any schematic context and just focusing on "initial impact" of the linemen, hence my majorly negative grades of Hood. But, like you said, he knows what he's doing schematically. Excellent insight there.  

 

Pretty much on the same page with the rest of the Dline. Not sure I even want to do part 3 now.  

[RandyHolt]

@thesubmittedone The DL seems all but set. We are who we are at this point. I think any work you do will largely support what you have already found, and supported our Laron. I am interested in our scheme with Mbu lined up a bit off the LOS though, which is maybe a question to consider in future interviews.

 

I am also interested to know our starting 3.

[TSO]

2 hours ago, RandyHolt said:

@thesubmittedone The DL seems all but set. We are who we are at this point. I think any work you do will largely support what you have already found, and supported our Laron. I am interested in our scheme with Mbu lined up a bit off the LOS though, which is maybe a question to consider in future interviews.

 

I am also interested to know our starting 3.

 

Yeah, I might not do all the video which is what takes forever, but I'll probably just finish grading all of the snaps so we can have totals through the main 3 preseason games.

 

I'm kind of interested in seeing where they all rank in the end and how that reflects what happens during the season. 

[LaRonDontLikeUgly]

5 hours ago, thesubmittedone said:

@LaRonDontLikeUgly I'll say your assessment almost completely matches mine, from what I've seen throughout the preseason regarding my focus on the Dline. 

 

I might part with you slightly on McGee... I'd give him a slightly better grade than you overall and don't think he's been a liability, but I agree, he hasn't been truly impactful. 

 

McClain, you're spot on. Noticed it a few times against the Packers where he's just unsure of himself. Hopefully he can start "getting it", because you do see flashes of talent there. 

 

Your assessment of Hood is brilliant, by the way. Better than I ever stated. My assessment was more based on removing any schematic context and just focusing on "initial impact" of the linemen, hence my majorly negative grades of Hood. But, like you said, he knows what he's doing schematically. Excellent insight there.  

 

Pretty much on the same page with the rest of the Dline. Not sure I even want to do part 3 now.  

 

Thank you brother!  Glad to hear that my Maker's Goggles weren't too fogged-up!!   

 

And yeah, my body-slamming of McGee would have probably been a bit less harsh had I not pulled up SportTrac and realized how bad the contract actually is.  Makes me wonder about the decision-making process with Baker.  We finally get a guy who busts his ass, goes from PS player to starter, changes his entire physique through hard work, loves his teammates/playing with Skins, has a career season, and we don't even offer him a contract??  (Hopefully someone around here who is not as itwitterlate as me will shoot Scot McC a tweet asking if he would have re-signed Swaggy...?)

 

I'm stoked to check out your evaluations thus far-- definitely do a 3rd chapter!!  Cheers man!

[bowhunter]

12 hours ago, LaRonDontLikeUgly said:

 

 

Ioannidis -  Definitely looks like a massively-improved player with the potential of being a great rotational lineman for the Skins.  Nice push off the ball, decent "jump" off the line, seemed to know where plays were headed.  He's definitely not the fastest or strongest around- but for a guy who appear to have somewhat of a "stiff" frame, he seems to play with good leverage and some surprising athleticism. 

 

AJ Francis -  This was the guy I was most curious about because I had literally never seen anything on him before in my life.  Spoke to some Gonzaga and UMD buddies who have been watching him for a long time and not a single one seemed excited about Francis... which seemed odd to me... local guy whose 6'5 337 and zero excitement/praise.... AT ALL?  (Hmm, maybe my boys are just haters.)  I thought Francis had a good game- obviously he had the fumble recovery but he was completely unblocked and it was more a right place/right time kind of thing on that particular play.  However, I noticed he was getting some forward push off the ball- he's definitely a big boy.  On two different occasions he stretched the field to the sidelines preventing the runner from cutting back and allowing the linebackers/secondary to make the tackle. He looks funny when he runs, but nice hustle.  On the Bengals' goaline touchdown he got blown up, but so did the rest of the defense.

 

 

 

After watching the Cinn game (rewind/slo-mo) these are the two remaining DL who have me most excited. Both seemed to always be in one the play and got good push. Mbu did not excite me at all, but I focused on play from the NG position. Ioannidis plays with a motor and I view him as a starter, not a rotational player at all. I'm curious about AJ sudden development after being a ho-hum player in college (based upon your buddies assesment.) Is he a late bloomer? Did Tomsula coach him up? I ask because he certainly seems to be the one who consistently gets good push and always working his way to the ball. 

 

PS GREAT write up! Makers Mark and tape review...perhaps you're our next Scotty McGem??

[Audible_Red40]

13 hours ago, LaRonDontLikeUgly said:

After the super sad news about Phil Taylor yesterday, I grabbed a bottle of Makers Mark and decided to go back and watch every defensive snap (several times over) from the Week 3 preseason game against the Bengals.  (As one of my buddies called it,  I was "Gametapin' the Scotty McC way!")

 

Damn bro, Great write-up.  Thank you for taking the time.

 

I too was just amazed but the "get-off" that Galette.  That dude can bring some speed/heat.

[BatteredFanSyndrome]

5 hours ago, LaRonDontLikeUgly said:

 

Thank you brother!  Glad to hear that my Maker's Goggles weren't too fogged-up!!   

 

And yeah, my body-slamming of McGee would have probably been a bit less harsh had I not pulled up SportTrac and realized how bad the contract actually is.  Makes me wonder about the decision-making process with Baker.  We finally get a guy who busts his ass, goes from PS player to starter, changes his entire physique through hard work, loves his teammates/playing with Skins, has a career season, and we don't even offer him a contract??  (Hopefully someone around here who is not as itwitterlate as me will shoot Scot McC a tweet asking if he would have re-signed Swaggy...?)

 

 

A lot of folks (primarily those that like pretty much every move the team makes) here will tell you that Swaggy is all talk and takes too many plays off.  There is some truth to that but overstated in my opinion.  When the team opted to let him go, I fully expected a big time upgrade and we got the Mc's. 

 

I would also love to hear Scot's side of how we ended up trading Baker for the Mc's and if that was his plan all along.

[RandyHolt]

I still think Baker wasn't even offered a league minimum because he mouthed off at an 0-16 coaches 0-16 play calls one time too many.  I'll always remember him de-cleating Eli. Being a 3-4 end, it's just not easy to impress. So Bakers time to shine was inside as a pass rusher, but that is no small task, expected to get sacks / heavy pressure up the gut playing for a DC that rarely tried any deception at all on pass rushes (stunts, etc).  I think it was a mistake to let him walk, but time will tell.

 

I cannot believe Galette played and I missed him. He was 1+1. Meh I probably just thought it was Wilbur Marshall.

 

[Koolblue13]

I still think Baker is going to ball out this year, because he'll be playing next to McCoy. It's pretty much what we had wanted to do, by adding someone like Campbell to play on the line with him, so there was at least one other professional grade football player near him. Now he will do just that, while we continue to toil with McReplacements. That's a shame.

 

We grab him off another PS, after he goes undrafted, after a few years and some injuries, he finally gets a starting job two years back beating out or old McReplacements and looks like he's going to have a great future and wants to do it as a Redskin. 

 

Now he's a Buc. Sucks.

[DC Lumber Co.]

11 hours ago, Koolblue13 said:

I still think Baker is going to ball out this year

 

We grab him off another PS, after he goes undrafted, after a few years and some injuries, he finally gets a starting job two years back beating out or old McReplacements and looks like he's going to have a great future and wants to do it as a Redskin. 

 

Now he's a Buc. Sucks.

 

He certainly could. But meanwhile our player development is doing similar things with the development of Taylor(RIP this year), Lanier, Mbu, and Francis. You could even add Ioannidis in there. Plenty of reasons to believe that one of them can match or exceed his production without the negatives that came with Baker. Dude had a tendency to freelance. Disbelief in a play call be damned, freelancing against scheme puts the entire defense in a worse spot for the sake of your own production/stats.

 

I was fine with moving on. If we found baker when we had zero resources invested in the line, I like our outlook to do more great things with actual draft picks sprinkled in with the UDFA guys.

 

Just an alternate take on your outlook, fwiw.

[Koolblue13]

1 hour ago, DC Lumber Co. said:

 

He certainly could. But meanwhile our player development is doing similar things with the development of Taylor(RIP this year), Lanier, Mbu, and Francis. You could even add Ioannidis in there. Plenty of reasons to believe that one of them can match or exceed his production without the negatives that came with Baker. Dude had a tendency to freelance. Disbelief in a play call be damned, freelancing against scheme puts the entire defense in a worse spot for the sake of your own production/stats.

 

I was fine with moving on. If we found baker when we had zero resources invested in the line, I like our outlook to do more great things with actual draft picks sprinkled in with the UDFA guys.

 

Just an alternate take on your outlook, fwiw.

I'm excited about the young guys, especially Ioan and Allen, sure. Not really the point. We're suppose to be developing talent on the line, like we did with Baker. However resigning them when they show they are starters, is an important part of it.

 

The freelancing is bad, but there isn't a huge history of it and only after our defense was obviously being led by an incompetent putz that should have been canned before the bye.

[skinny21]

8 minutes ago, Koolblue13 said:

I'm excited about the young guys, especially Ioan and Allen, sure. Not really the point. We're suppose to be developing talent on the line, like we did with Baker. However resigning them when they show they are starters, is an important part of it.

 

The freelancing is bad, but there isn't a huge history of it and only after our defense was obviously being led by an incompetent putz that should have been canned before the bye.

While I'm not sure of the role Baker played in terms of our poor run stopping last year, I totally agree that his was pretty much a textbook situation in terms of rewarding a player.  Still remember some big name qb (Ryan maybe?) mentioning Baker first when asked about players he respected on the 'Skins D.  Would love to have had him, Allen, Io and (now?) Francis... especially if Galette is in the mix to force qbs up in the pocket. Basically, him with a better defense all around... which we (seem to?) have.  

 

Alas.  

 

Gonna hold judgement on the Mcsperiment for a time though... especially considering their lack of 3-4 experience. 

[bowhunter]

Do we yet know who will be playing is PS#4 against Tampa on Thursday? It seems that we have so many rotational/starters on the bubble especially at this position.

[skinny21]

9 hours ago, bowhunter said:

Do we yet know who will be playing is PS#4 against Tampa on Thursday? It seems that we have so many rotational/starters on the bubble especially at this position.

I should be able to figure out which position you're referring to (autocorrected to "is"?)... but I can't.  

 

 

[bowhunter]

3 hours ago, skinny21 said:

I should be able to figure out which position you're referring to (autocorrected to "is"?)... but I can't.  

 

 

Sorry "in" PS#4 (pre-season game #4)

[JaxJoe]

On 8/29/2017 at 0:15 PM, RandyHolt said:

what I call our 1.5 hybrid gap control

Funny in that I was also trying to figure out our D-Line rushing strategy.  Since there are 4 gaps and only 3 rushing linemen, I figured 2 got doubled teamed and one was shooting the gap but it's not that simple.  It seems like two (sometimes) are shooting the gap with an inside linebacker or sometimes safety to occupy the weak side.  Then, the double-teamed lineman seems to lag behind.

 

I criticized McGee in his first pre-season game for this, but I'm thinking now it's a strategy.  This tweet links a GIF that shows J. Allen going for the gap (and indirectly occupying two O-linemen) while Ionnidis 'lags' behind then shoots for the ball carrier. Paul Conner calls it a stunt but it doesn't look like a stunt to me.