Wimbley's Sack Was Vrs Titans' Best Olineman

ITHIKA

@flugel said:
He had another pressure on VY that flushed him out of the pocket and unofrtunately drew a flag for face masking on VY. He was in the QB's face more than once. Therefore, I don't have a problem saying Wimbley brought it consistently yesterday.
Believe it or not, D'Qwell Jackson is probably the LBer that wants to forget yesterday the most. On the series Collins led the scoring drive against us - Jackson had a bad series IMO. I just watched the game again for a second time and I caught him missing in action or missing tackles he should have made on the replays. And guess what LBer got beat for TD pass in the hook zone in the 2nd half? The 5th TE on Tenn named Mulligan easily beat D'Qwell and scored on the play because of it. How ironic is that? VY follows up his INT to Hall with TD pass to a guy named Mulligan.

I realize it's only the preseason and all but I expect ILBers to play better when they're only being blocked by FBs instead of the big uglies playing OG. Jackson was one of my favorite draft picks at the time he was drafted in the round he was drafted in. Therefore, I'm VERY harsh when I critique him to the standards I expect from him. He gets the MOST love of all our LBers because of tackle frequency MORE than tackle locations. At this point in time, and this is only me - but I think Jackson is closer to Wali Rainer than he is Mike Johnson. When I see him consistently making stops near the line of scrimmage - I'll join the widespread love he has. We NEED this guy to come through for us especially with the upgrades on the Nose making life as easy as it can be for ILBers.

- Tom F.

Wether you think he made tackles downfield or not the guy still lead the NFL in tackles by a wide margin. The knock on Dqwell has and always will be his size for an ILB in the 3-4 D. What the guy lacks in size though he makes up for immensely in football IQ and instincts. Remember the Buff game last year he was pretty amazing. My thoughts on jackson are he'll never be an elite ILB but he will be a very good one for many years. JMHO..

Sez.EJ

@beefjerky said:
there was only 6 players last season who got 14 or more sacks:
DeMarcus Ware 20 sacks

Jared Allen 15 sacks

James Harrison 15 sacks

Joey Porter 15 sacks

John Abraham 14 sacks

Julius Peppers 14 sacks

so you need to lower your expectations a little bit..

NO WAY.. Why shouldn't I expect him to be a top 10 sacker? (ok top 6 if you want to be technical about it) He's a #1 draft pick and was brought in here to SACK the qb.. That's the problem.. low expecations.. Screw that.. I'm not saying I would be mad with 10,11 or 12.. But why not 14? ..HUH?... Your punking him out already and the season hasn't even started. Your response repulses me.

roach

Jackson led the NFL in tackles. So what? Here's a news flash- when you make tackles 5 or 6 yards downfield, your defense is going to be on the field a long time. You will have many plays in which to pad that tackling stat.

i'd rather have a top 5 defense where nobody leads the NFL in any particular personal stat.

ITHIKA

Lewis and Urlacher seem to be in the top ten every year but your right and doesn't mean anything lol.

Thomas5737

@sez.ej said:
Even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while.. hahaha. Let's see that about 14 more times and I'll be convinced.

I have little doubt that he will accomplish this. Maybe not this year, or even have all of them accumulated as a Brown... but he will get 14 more.

Tobalaz

@ithika said:
Lewis and Urlacher seem to be in the top ten every year but your right and doesn't mean anything lol.

They also run in more aggressive defenses where the linemen stunt more frequently and gives them space to attack the line after their reads instead of being assigned to sit back and wait for someone to come to you.

Captain Cheesedick

and isn't he one of our starters?

ballpeen

@roach said:
Jackson led the NFL in tackles. So what? Here's a news flash- when you make tackles 5 or 6 yards downfield, your defense is going to be on the field a long time. You will have many plays in which to pad that tackling stat.
i'd rather have a top 5 defense where nobody leads the NFL in any particular personal stat.

I agree. The only two stats that interest me from a defensive standpoint is points allowed per game and turnovers.

If your D stands near the top in those two categories, it has done it's part in putting the team in a position to win...then it is up to the O to score some points to fill in the other half of the puzzle.

"It's Christmas morning and Santa's comin' down the chimney!"

ITHIKA

@ballpeen said:
I agree. The only two stats that interest me from a defensive standpoint is points allowed per game and turnovers.
If your D stands near the top in those two categories, it has done it's part in putting the team in a position to win...then it is up to the O to score some points to fill in the other half of the puzzle.

Actually the Browns were third amongst all the NFL in takeaways last season. Guess who was 1st and 2nd, the Ravens and Bears with Lewis and Urlacher. Now telling me having a guy thats in the top ten in tackles is bad is just outlandish. If there's anything that has to do with Dqwell having a high tackle rate its that he has the best DT in all of football tying up blockers in front of him, not that he's making tackles 10 yards down the field or because the D is always on the field. Come on guys give this defense some credit? We all know the huge problem with this defense was one the scheme and two the fact we couldn't stop the run 28th in the league 151 rushing ypg. Against the pass we were substantially better ranked 14th in the NFL with 204 passing ypg. As well the Browns ranked 16th in PPG to with a modest 21.9 ppg. There is no reason this defense should not improve these numbers with a softer schedule and a much better defensive game plan. As far as Dqwell goes the guy is the real deal and you all will see that this season. Once again elite no, very good YES! I think I've made my point....

ballpeen

Dont; get me wrong, i am not down on Jackson..I just don't pay much attention to his tackle numbers.

Flugel

@roach said:
Jackson led the NFL in tackles. So what? Here's a news flash- when you make tackles 5 or 6 yards downfield, your defense is going to be on the field a long time. You will have many plays in which to pad that tackling stat.
i'd rather have a top 5 defense where nobody leads the NFL in any particular personal stat.

Good point Ed!

Stats CAN be misleading sometimes or Wali Rainer would have had tenure here. When you're watching GOOD ILBers in this league - they're making the majority of their tackles near the line of scrimmage and they're rarely the bullseye of the opponent's game plans. And when we have good performance from the Nose tackle in front of them - it keeps BIG bodies off the LBers and makes their job much easier.

2 years ago I had Ronnie Brown in fantasy football so I was paying particular attention to things like receptions. Miami's game plan vs Cleveland in their 1-15 season was to get Ronnie Brown passes in the hook zones. He finished the day with 9 receptions for 73 yards on top of a decent day running the ball. Anyway, Jackson made all 9 tackles where the avg gain was 8 yards. More specifically, he was the bullseye of the opponent's game plan. When they're coming right at him - he doesn't have to go out of his way to make the tackle. I'm not thinking he was enormously respected if they kept trying to get their best weapon on his hook zone.

When a 5th string TE named Mulligan beats Jackson in that SAME hook zone for a TD and he was also lifeless against their starters on their TD drive - let's at least acknowledge he wasn't wonderful. That doesn't make you a BAD Browns' fan by any means. We ALL want Jackson to emerge into Mike Johnson but he doesn't have his impact yet and that's mainly because of WHERE he makes most of his tackles. That being the case, I think he's closer to Wali Rainer than he is Mike Johnson at this time. I want to put tobasco sauce on those words and eat them by mid season. Promise.

- Tom F.

DTBH

Jackson actually spoke to the legitimacy of this argument that tackle numbers are far from the only thing that matters...

"The tackles are good, don't get me wrong," Jackson said. "But every guy who plays linebacker in this league can tackle. I want to make those special plays. I want to be a special player. That's what I work toward every day."

If you don't notice him virtually all game but you look in the box score and see that he got 13 tackles, that isn't the most dominant game he could have. He needs to be making plays at the line of scrimmage, tackles for losses, a sack here or there, etc.

http://news-herald.com/articles/2009/09/02...s/nh1378023.txt

Theres some other good stuff in there too about the LBers and Rob Ryan.

LCDawgFan13

@roach said:
Jackson led the NFL in tackles. So what? Here's a news flash- when you make tackles 5 or 6 yards downfield, your defense is going to be on the field a long time. You will have many plays in which to pad that tackling stat.
i'd rather have a top 5 defense where nobody leads the NFL in any particular personal stat.

Perhaps we should look further into how many of his tackles "downfield" are a direct result of a missed tackle or just bad play by the D-linemen? Jackson plays a little mop-up duty for them! Imagine, if he wasn't making those tackles, how bad our defense would look! Give the guy some credit where it is due. Why is everyone trying to knock down one of the few consistant players this team has?

DTBH

Like the other say, Wali Rainer led the NFL in tackles once. There's more to it than that and if you don't think so you're just extremely amateur at analyzing the position.

DTBH

@dtbh said:
Like the other say, Wali Rainer led the NFL in tackles once. There's more to it than that and if you don't think so you're just extremely amateur at analyzing the position.

Wali Rainer never led the league in tackles.

Flugel

@lcdawgfan13 said:
Perhaps we should look further into how many of his tackles "downfield" are a direct result of a missed tackle or just bad play by the D-linemen? Jackson plays a little mop-up duty for them! Imagine, if he wasn't making those tackles, how bad our defense would look! Give the guy some credit where it is due. Why is everyone trying to knock down one of the few consistant players this team has?

I noticed in 2007 that Sean Jones made an insane # of tackles because our LBers weren't up to snuff. In fact, our LBing was so less than impressive - he got caught cheating up into the box on many an occasion and got burned in the passing game.

My comments about Jackson STARTED about last week's game. Watch Tenn's FIRST TD scoring drive and let me know when and where Jackson mattered. I've seen it twice. He had a BAD night. And later they couldn't wait to get a 5th string TE that won't make Tenn's roster matched up with Jackson in his hook zone and it became a TD from the man named Mulligan. Speaking of mulligans, HOPEFULLY that game was just a mulligan for Jackson.

I would say that on all the draft days Savage had - the guy that brought the biggest smile to my face was Jackson. I've sported high expectations for him ever since that day. I STILL have them but I want to be honest when I say I haven't seen a difference maker in him yet. I don't think anyone is pissed about a guy that makes ALOT of tackles. However, I ALSO think your LBers with the better 1st step instincts tend to make more plays at the line of scrimmage. THAT is the one area I want to see Jackson grow in. With Shaun Rogers in front of him keeping the OGs away from him - I'd gladly sacrifice tackle frequencies for stops at the line of scrimmage. That's HOW you keep the chains from moving. Defenses that get OFF the field shouldn't have a guy leading the NFL in tackles should they? Not only that but if someone has a STUD - teams try to avoid him which impacts tackle volumes as well.

Part of the way I watch football is I'm always looking for where and how this team can improve. I'll probably NEVER lose the mentality of a player that always wanted to resolve the bad instead of looking at what went well. It's how I'm wired so please don't think I do this to be a jerk. I'm probably most critical of the guys I have the highest hopes for. Jackson doesn't SUCK by any means. That said, if he gets the right coaching blended with the right schemes and surrounding personnel - the old saying is "you ain't seen nothing yet." I mean this optimistically like the sky can be the limit. He's not there until we see him calling the line of scrimmage home sweet home if you know what I mean.

I'm looking forward to us all tuning into where our LBers are making stops this year. Let's pay attention to this as a group and shoot the Schlitz about them every week. A good way to watch these guys is take note of WHO is blocking them (oline or lead back). And then note where the stop is made in relation to where the ball was snapped from.

- Tom F.

Thaak

one thing I noticed about Wimbley's sack, is that he actually readjusted his move to the inside. That's huge considering a knock after the last couple years was that he was a one-trick pony.