Justin Edwards
A tiny town in NE Kansas.
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Hi, my name is Justin, I enjoy long walks on the beach (who am I kidding I've never seen an actual beach in my life), playing video games (okay, that one is true), and watching the Denver Broncos, Oakland Raiders, and San Diego Chargers losing to my Kansas City Chiefs.
So what's out there better than a guy who, with our team, has made the Pro Bowl and given us a double-digit win season when previously we had 6 wins in two years? How much better can you get? Nobody is saying he's Peyton Manning, but do you realize how many 'ELITE' QBs, (which OF COURSE EVERYONE WANTS!) are in the league? They're few and far between. With the advent of the rule changes which have tremendously helped the passing games of the NFL, admittedly they're a little more common, but what, realistically, is out there for us that is better than what we have? We went after Peyton Manning, he wasn't interested. Did you want Flynn, the untested one (a la Matt Cassel)?
Were you hoping we'd draft Weeden or any other rookie not named Luck or RG3, who would be untested, with no guarantees on being even serviceable? Do you want to spend 3 first round picks and a second round pick to move up in next years draft to snag a *hopefully* good QB instead of getting 3 legitimate starters (assuming we don't draft another Poe-type prospect) and probably 4? Really, what's the thought process here; I'm curious.
Sure, there are better QBs than Cassel. Available ones, though? I don't think so, Tim. (Note: I know your name is probably not Tim, but I almost never get to use these line from Home Improvement, so I'm taking it!)
@BigGil @xxxlp Well that's a positive sign. I like that idea. We can do SO many things from those positions. If Hillis, presumably lines up at FB, we could just hand it to him and he can dive up the middle. If we wanted to, we could pitch it in either direction to either of the speedsters, we could go for swing passes, we could keep them all in to block (although I'm not sure Dex would really 'block' anybody so much as make them unable to see Matt Cassel's abdomen as they barrel through him (maybe that's just me), or we could do a traditional hand it to Jamaal (while Dex runs to the side, dragging a 'backer with him) who follows Hillis up the gut. That's definitely a good sign, in my eyes. Let's get these multi-back sets that we can attack from a dozen different angles from, let's use these multiple-TE sets that have been missing from our offense for so long. Let's get some screens and some reverses (Dex and Wylie both running a reverse = hesitant defenders trying to locate the ball) plays installed again. Hell, I'm even for bringing in a package of trick plays. We've seen a few them work in recent years. As long we aren't the same nasty, stagnant, utterly predictable pile of run run pass punt that we were last year; I'll be less likely to blow a head-gasket. Even an average offense is better than what we had last year.
Bad news for the Raiders, good news for the rest of the AFC West. Between mortgaging the future for Carson Palmer, who may or may not return back to his Pro Bowl form from the past, losing, due to cap reasons, some of their key starters (Stanford Routt and Kevin Boss included), and now they lose one of their top defenders? Man. Thanks Oakland. We appreciate it. Stay classy.
@linc15 I would think that too.. I wonder if that's the case, or if it's not as telling as we think. Or maybe his strengths just outweigh his weaknesses/they saw some technique (or lack thereof) that they could tweak to make him more efficient? He had to do something right or we wouldn't have taken him so high, though, eh?
Back on topic this time :P, I was a bit saddened when I read how 'slow' (we're talking tenths of a second here, but you know what I mean) Allen's Three Cone time was. 7.84 seems like a time that could be reasonably beat, and if that's the largest indicator of a starting caliber OG, well that's a little saddening to me, as I wanted Allen to supplant Lilja this year (could still happen, but it may be more realistic to wait until next year?).
Just for fun: Let's see what David DeCastro, the OG most of us wanted heading into the draft, scored:
Short Shuttle: 4.56 seconds (EPA)
Three Cone: 7.30 seconds (EPA)
Vertical Jump: 29.5 inches (EPA)
Broad Jump: 98 inches
Forty-yard Dash: 5.43 seconds
Bench Press: 34 reps (EPA)
So DeCastro didn't knock it out of the park, he had four EPAs to Jeff Allen's three, but he did earn an EPA (by far) in the Three Cone drill, which is supposed to be the most important indicator of a starting caliber OG, so that's something; it probably tells us (like we don't already know) that DeCastro is a probable starter in the NFL as soon as he steps onto the field, which, barring injury, is going to be the case..
Just interesting to see how these guys stack up. I think you've gotten me addicted to comparing players, especially the rookies we were interested in!
(By the way I meant no disrespect Double D! It was a great article, I was just interested in seeing how Poe stacked up with all NTs, hefty or not-so-hefty!)
Just to go back to Poe for a moment; I 'put my money where my mouth is', so to speak:
I took it upon myself, since I brought up the criticism, to compare Dontari Poe's numbers to all NTs in the league (a few of them didn't have combine stats/did not participate in a pro day). By taking all the 3-4 teams, Dolphins, Jets, Ravens, Steelers, Texans, Colts, Chiefs, Chargers, Cowboys, Redskins, Packers, Cardinals, and Niners, and perusing their depth chart / current rosters (including this years draft class) to find anyone listed at NT (the Ravens have SEVEN guys listed at NT, holy shnikies, granted, a few of those are listed as NT/DE, like Haloti Ngata). Then I looked up each of their combine/pro-day statistics, and taking their best numbers (for instance, a few of them had x amount of bench press reps at their pro-day, but then did x+5 bench press reps at the combine, after extended training), found the 'peer average, and compared them to Poe. Here's how that shook out:
Poe's numbers:
Short Shuttle: 4.56 seconds
Three Cone: 7.9 seconds
Vertical Jump: 29.5 inches
Broad Jump: 105 inches
Forty-yard Dash: 4.98 seconds
Bench Press: 44 reps
How does that stack up with the averages of NTs across the league?
Short Shuttle:4.65 seconds (Poe = EPA)
Three Cone: 7.75 seconds (Poe comes up short)
Vertical Jump: 29.6 inches (Poe comes up short)
Broad Jump: 104.3 inches (Poe = EPA
Forty-yard Dash: 5.11 seconds (Poe = EPA)
Bench Press: 27.2 reps (Poe = EPA)
I was against the Poe pick from the get-go, but I'm slowly warming up to the idea of him doing something up front that'll allow guys like DJ to own the field. What this says to me, earning 4/6 EPAs, and coming with .1 inches and .15 seconds from being 6/6 regardless of weight/height/physics/anything else, is that he's an athletic freak. I just think that his numbers speak for themselves - we didn't need to stick him in a subgroup to see he was gifted, but if you do what DD did and give him a bit of 'extra credit' for being in a class of heavies, he indeed excels even more. What does this tell us at the end of the day? I'm not exactly sure but it's a helluva fun way to break down our biggest boom/bust project and think about how he'll affect our team, eh?
I'm not ready to annoint our offense anywhere near as good as our defense; and Daboll doesn't exactly inspire confidence (but he was in Miami, and who did they have playing for them again? Yeah, that could be why), what with being the 20th ranked scoring team in the league. Granted, that's a helluva lot better than 31st, which is what we were ranked last year. And we had more plays from scrimmage than the Dolphins did. With our players, can he propel us even farther? I sure hope so. I hope his below-average numbers in Miami were due mostly to talent there (or lack thereof) and not his coaching prowess. Only time will tell. If this works out - great! If it doesn't, I'll always rue his hiring, as Al Saunders was available, and I was really wanting him. I know his system may be a little more complicated than Daboll's, but.. Man. Any of you guys and gals remember the last time Al Saunders was here? Good times.
Anyway, the only thing I really wanna see is a commitment to the run, at least early in ball games. We can wear a defense out with our three good 'backs, and then the play-action works all day long, and then we can mix in a bunch of screens (which have been missing a lot from our offenses in recent years), mix in the passes and quick passes over the middle of the field, get the draws going, utilize our 2-TE sets, which we could feasibly run or pass out of both pretty effectively. We just need Cassel to have the time to throw, and if we keep the defense on their toes, never knowing what'll happen, and also throw the ball deep at least a couple times a game (even if we don't make it) then I think we'll be at minimum an average offense, but with probably the best or close to the best run-game in the league. With our stellar defense and a top running game, you don't really need a stellar QB or pass-game. It helps, but you don't need it. We'll be contenders year in and year out, and maybe if Cassel can stand in the pocket for more than 2 seconds before getting sacked (I'm looking at you, new Ram Barry Richardson), he'll surprise us. I'm going in expecting him to be average. If he can get us 250 yards and 2 TD's a game, with one or fewer turnovers a game, he's doing his job, and it's up to our running game and defense to do the rest.
I got the Shaun Alexander thing wrong - It WAS Seattle, just not Alexander. They franchised their LT Walter Jones three times in a row in the early 2000's.
@Danny W @MicahStephenson You can franchise a player multiple years in a row (Shaun Alexander I think had three years in a row by Seattle, where he was franchised each year), but most players will negotiate a clause in their contract requesting not to be franchised the next year, or they'll sit out (like Albert Haynesworth did with the Titans, in recent memory) or will just sit out, as they want the long-term deal and security against possible injury and losing millions after their franchise contract expires and they're unable to sign a lucrative long-term deal due to their injury.
I also agree that Stephenson is not going to be ready in a year or maybe even two. They (the NFL Network broadcasters that were doing the draft, including Mike Mayock) said that Stephenson is a 'project player with a very high ceiling', who's a 'bit of an athletic freak' that can possibly be the starter of the future, IN the future. He'll be fine a few years from now, presumably, but not anytime soon.
Should Matt Cassel play well, we can resign Brady Quinn for legit backup money, and it won't be an issue. He'll be fairly cheap, and I wouldn't want to get rid of him with as much potential as he had (has?), we've only seem him with the Browns, really. We're much better. I like his chances of doing something here, and apparently so does he, since he allegedly took less money to come to K.C., meaning we could probably keep him long-term, more cheaply, as well.
Hillis is the x-factor of all this. If he has a crappy year, we'll dump him. If he has a great year, we'll either re-sign long-term, or franchise him. RB franchise tags are in the 7-million range while WR/OL franchise tags are in the 9-million range, so it'd be a cheaper hit than doing Albert, for example.
Dwayne Bowe will probably get resigned during the season to a long-term contract,
Jeremy Horne can either be resigned for close to or at the veteran's minimum or be let go in favor of a rookie/young veteran WR for depth.
Jake O'Connel same as above, third string TEs don't make much money, he flashes potential at times but he's not worth an investment of cash, right now. He could get resigned for very little, or released.
Brandon Albert is the most important person on this list, in my opinion. Our offense would not fall apart if Bowe or Hillis weren't there. We have other weapons. But if Albert goes, our line has to switch around, we lose all the continuity, all the 'gelling', and then either our LT or RT spot will be played by a player who may very well underperform. Not good for our line, or our offense. I would prioritize this above everyone / everything else, and get a deal done sometime this year, get this man his money.
Ryan Lilja is similar to Hillis - we need to see how well he does this year before we can speculate too much. I personally think Jeff Allen will replace him by midseason, and if that's the case, Lilja may be resigned for less-than-starter money, or, most likely, will probably be released so he can sign with another team as a starter. I don't see him liking being relegated to backup, but that's the nature of the game, eventually you get replaced by a younger, faster, stronger guy, no matter who you are. We can replace, if he leaves, with a veteran guard in FA next year, there's always tons of o-linemen available, that are good for depth.
Dorsey.. Short and sweet. Resign for cheap or gtfo!
Belcher is a solid player, who's still young enough to build on his tools. Remember, DJ had some up-and-down seasons before becoming consistently really, really good as an ILB as well. He's only 24 years old, and he does the block-crunching that allows DJ to perform mop-up duty. I'd resign him, pay him a little more even. He's really good against the run, and with the rest of our defense stacked, his liability as a pass-defender isn't that much of a weakness, especially when we can take him off for obvious passing downs. He's serviceable enough to last through the first couple downs, whether it's a run or pass. I'd like to get him resigned, assuming we don't want an ILB early in next year's draft.
Brandon Siler we could resign for cheap. He hasn't had a super stellar career or anything, and he came here and promptly sat out due to injury, so we can resign him fairly cheaply, and add injury clauses to his contract to recoup some losses if he gets injured again or fails to hit statistical benchmarks, so he's really a potentially good player with very little risk. Resign him.
Resign Travis Daniels (good, solid depth) and Donald Washington (same as Daniels), they're not starter-quality (yet) but they have played pretty well when asked to step in due to injury. They can be resigned for halfway cheaply, as well, so I'd get get them inked up while they're still here. We need the depth.
Reeves and McCarthy I don't really know too much about, so I wouldn't care too much either way. If we think they can pan out, resign them, if not, cut 'em and replace with rookies/veteran FAs.
Colquitt should get resigned. He's not the best in the league, so he won't demand big money (big money and punters, it just sounds so funny in the same sentence) but he's a solid Punter. He'll get resigned for decently cheap sometime during the season at the latest, methinks.
Resign the LS, they're inexpensive and they're important. Keep Gafford for continuity's sake, if nothing else.
Tyson Jackson will probably restructure his deal. I'd like to keep him; he's one of the best DEs in the league versus the run, which is helpful in our offense, even with next to no pass rush, our secondary is still able to hang with anyone, so if Poe can come in and help demand more help from the O-line, in the middle, Jackson (and Dorsey too, for that matter) SHOULD look better, and they may surprise us. I hope. If not, Dorsey is either resigned very cheap or cut, like I said earlier. Jackson, though, I'd like to keep regardless. Absolute worst-case scenario, we draft new DEs, bulk Jackson up stick him at NT behind (or in front of, depending) Poe, and let him run-stuff the middle of the field. He can be resigned for much cheaper (never again will he make 15/year, unless he has the greatest single season of any DE in NFL history. Unlikely. But I can see keeping him on a 4-6 million/year contract for 3-4 years, which'll give him enough time to push himself to get better, and then get a hefty long-term deal (or not) once that contract is up or he outplays it. It seems to me he understands he needs to step it up, after agreeing to restructure, and I love having guys that are willing to restructure/take less money/admit when they're sucking/etc, especially when they can fill a niche (run stuffing DE) on our team. I'd want to keep him.
We could feasibly get all these done, most of the players resigned (depending on the contracts of Bowe and Albert, and the x-factor of Hillis and Lilja, that is) and still have some money left over to sign a few FA/get our rookies signed/make a couple of preemptive moves on contracts of players whose contracts are expiring in 2014, as well.
@Danny W If he does have a good year, I'd probably agree with that; Hillis franchised would give us another year with a good back complementing Charles, time for Gray to earn his stripes and more time to find a replacement for Hillis outright. Also, RB franchise tags are pretty cheap when compared to say WR or LT, which are the other main viable options we'd have, so it would be less of a hit, which'd be nice.
@Big Jim That's why I was opposed to saying 'I should do this' as opposed to 'we should do this', as when 'I', not a writer for AA, want to do that, the best case scenario is to 'hijack' an article's comment section like we started to, which is never the intention. It did get to be a little overkill. On a side note I AM genuinely curious as to how Poe measures up versus all the NTs in the league, and with Gil's tips and pointers I'ma be looking into it a little more when I've got time (what with Mother's Day and all it's gonna be a stretch to get anything done this weekend).
@BigGil Ahh good call on Denver, too. Fox confirmed they'll be going back to a 4-3, they were a 3-4 for awhile there, but have been/are in the process of changing back to a 4-3 defense, so Denver is off the list.
@BigGil @xxxlp I think they've been hybrid 34/43 since McDaniels was head coach, right? I remember specifically a few plays where they lined up in a 3-4 (I remember them because Von Miller looked so freaking good in those plays). Guess we'll have to do a little more looking around to make sure. Arizona is one I hadn't thought of, good call, and yeah Indy is switching to a 34 with this offseason, but should they be counted, since their players (I dunno their free agents, they might have picked up some former NTs) haven't been in a 34? Or since their tackles will likely play NT, should we count those as well to compare Poe against them? Should probably count them for good measure I suppose. Damn, I haven't ever really thought about it before, but there are quite a few 34 teams in the NFL right now. I would have figured less-than-10 for sure, if I didn't sit and think about it. Interesting.
@KC_Fanactic69 @xxxlp @BigGil That's true KCF69, Poe's numbers are going to be good no matter what, just because of his extreme athleticism, and as the numbers won't be very far apart, I'd still think that Poe would 'dominate' (or be close to dominating) most of the categories regardless of how we divide the DTs in the league, whether by DT/NT, weight, height, or anything else we could muster. Poe is just a freak. That term is used too often, I think (just like genius is thrown around to seemingly every halfway decent coach/coordinator in the league) but Poe is a true freak. 350 lbs and running faster than some 200 lb men (who are still gifted athletes) can? You gotta be kidding me. From just a physics standpoint, it's just mind-boggling. Regardless of if he's rated versus DTs or NTs, I think Poe still looks good.
I just hope Romeo can take that 'good' in him and alleviate some of the 'bad'. I know that NTs specifically aren't supposed to get a lot of stats (they free up everyone else to make plays) but when you're THAT talented, THAT physically gifted, THAT impressive, in a college setting like Conference USA, and you're not even First-Team All American? That's scary to me. Some of the excuses Romeo used were valid (playing every snap in a game is tiring. Playing it at 350 lbs must have been downright mind-numbingly exhausting), but if he was that much stronger, faster, quick-footed, etc, he should have made plays regardless.
I HOPE it was just that he was/is super raw, and Romeo can sort of mould him exactly how he wants to to find the absolute perfect NT for our defense, I'm just dubious as to if that's the case or not. It's scary to have that much potential and not be seeing much out of it. Then again, I don't think any of us watched every defensive snap of every game he played in in college, where I'm guessing Romeo and co. probably did. :P
Related to my post above where I was going to look for NTs, I couldn't find a comprehensive list of 3-4 teams in the NFL in the few searches I've done so far, so I'm doing it the old-fashioned way. So if anyone sees a team here that doesn't belong, or a team that belongs here that isn't here, please let me know!
So far, playing any variation of the 34 defense, I've come up with: Kansas City, Denver, Dallas, Cleveland, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Miami, New York (Jets), San Diego, Green Bay, San Fransisco, and Washington.
(Do the Raiders still play any type of 3-4? In recent memory I could only remember 4-3 defenses from them. I could just be having a brain fart here!)
Once I have all the teams down, I can look at the DT position on their rosters, find the combine stats (or pro-day stats, if they didn't attend the combine) of all the players that played the NT position in a 34, if available, and then I can mock-up the players similar to how Landers did it back in '09, and compare Poe to all players who played/play NT in the NFL in recent years. I'm actually really curious now to find out. It'd also be fun to do it for all of our current crop of rookies (well, at least the draft picks, that is) but would be a much more tremendous undertaking going from NTs in the NFL, to, let's say all WRs or RBs. Yikes.
And oh god I feel you on the slow internet thing. Living in the country is amazing when you don't want the hustle and bustle of a city setting, but when you've got ~150 kbps download speeds and ~50kbps upload speeds, trying to do much of anything can be a major pain.
@BigGil @xxxlp I didn't mean for it to feel condescending, and if it did, I apologize. Yeah, I too played some DT/NT and at my school (a tiny town in the middle of Kansas that had 300 kids in my high school, total, not just in one class) my coaches called the heads-up a '2' for taking up everything between the inside shoulders of each guard (we didn't have a 1 or 0 in the defense, it started with the 2-technique), so I've grown up thinking of it that way, instead of a more traditional approach, if you will, so I apologize for that as well.
And when I said 'we' should look into it I was totally willing to be a large part of it; I haven't posted too much in recent memory (but have lurked AA for quite a long time, and even participated in the first AA fantasy football season and whatnot) and my 'shtick' is doing longer posts than most others, as I'm usually thorough in what I'm talking about and want my point of views understood and whatnot. More often than not, my comments will be 3-4 times as long as the normal ones. :P But I digress, the point I was saying is when I was saying we, I was thinking of doing a joint little project with him or anyone that was interested (if DD or anyone else IS even interested) where we essentially do just as DD did, but research and find all current/recent players who partially/fully play NT in the NFL in any capacity, and compare them that way, not just by weight. I'd be interested to see what the results were, then.
And my suggestion for a re-do was because if I did the work to figure all this out, I'd post it on here so others could compare and see as well; but I've done that before on similar-done articles, and posted my findings or stats and what-have-you. The only problem was from the comments I got it felt like I was somehow taking away from the article the writer had done, and I wouldn't want that. I figured a joint-undertaking of an actual AA-writer would be better, as then it could be re-posted as a featured article on AA and more people would see it, anyway. I didn't make that very clear, as I was just thinking of examples and things to get my point across. :P
Also, I gave credit to DD for his work, saying it was interesting and a good read, I just personally would like to see Poe actually compared to his peers, not just a handful of them, for reasons I explained above. :)
I'm perfectly fine with doing the 'grunt work' myself and finding/posting the results, if anyone is interested and if DD takes no offense to an uber-large comment being posted under his article!
@BigGil Except that the players mentioned were either fully or part-time NTs in the league, not just DTs. They just also happened to be heavier, as most of the NTs in the league are much larger than your average player (as DD pointed out). If Poe's only getting compared to the 'heavies', we already know he'll come out on top of most things. He's an athletic freak. We knew that from the combine on; that's not news. I'd like to see how he measures up to NTs in general, not just a few choice 'heavies'. I understand the correlation, he's big ol' boy, measuring up against other big ol' boys, but he's also a Nose Tackle, and I wanna see how he measures up to other NTs, not just the big ones.
Like I said, we can give little niches of players different points of view by looking at comparative metrics; like I mentioned with Dex or Cassel. Let's assume Cassel is at x position in the NFL among QBs based on the metric. If we separate the QBs into pure passers and passers who can also run well, Cassel moves up a few spots from x, right? Guys like Michael Vick (who are ahead of Cassel's x ranking) get moved into their own subcategory, meaning fewer players for Cassel to 'compete' against, meaning he moves up. Does that make him better than that player, like a Vick? Oh no.
I can see the need for splitting DT from NT, the general idea can be the same for both positions, but not really for us. A DT has to collapse the pocket and demand double teams to free up 43 DEs to rush the passer effectively. In our scheme, the NT plays a 2, which means he plays heads-up on a Center and is responsible for the gap on either shoulder of the Center. His job is to be an anchor, solidifying himself in his spot, and staying there, not losing his ground, and demanding double teams and allowing our DEs single-teams (so they can defend the run or further collapse the pocket, making sure to contain, and hopefully also drawing double teams, if possible, to free up our OLBs who are rushing the passer in this scheme). He can also bull-rush the Center off the snap, and cause disruption of the pocket by forcing the QB to one side or the other, allowing in this case Tamba or Justin to obliterate the QB. This is a little bit different from other 34 schemes, but the main aspects of the position are the same. If we wouldn't separate QBs (for the reasons I talked about earlier), then why separate NTs? I can see splitting DT/NT, but further subdividing NTs?
And DD said it himself; most NTs in the league are large, typically they're a good 25-30 lbs bigger than their DT counterparts. So most of the NTs that will be 'judged' by the metrics are also bigger and stronger than DTs. Doesn't make sense, if that is so, to leave them out, does it? Comparing a 346 lb guy with a 330 lb guy who play the same position is like comparing a 220 lb QB with a 235 lb QB. They may have slightly different styles, they may be a bit different, and play in different schemes, but they're still QBs, right?
NTs compared to NTs is what I'm interested in seeing. I don't care if there's a 250 lb NT out there, I wanna see how Poe stacks up against everyone at his position that has come out recently, is currently active in the NFL, or that participated in all the same drills that he did, that's all. We can discuss differences afterward, but I think even if we did do this, Poe still comes out on top of most things. Smaller doesn't equal faster, in the same way that bigger doesn't equal slower, in Poe's case. There are going to be outliers no matter what position you have.
That's interesting and all, but you're only measuring Poe against his 'weight peers' not his actual NT peers. What about the sub-300 NTs in the league like Jay Ratliff? As much as I hate the Cowgirls, he's one of the best NTs in the league, and weighs in at around 287 on game days. What about all the 'mediums' like Barry Cofield who weigh in around 305 on game days? Of course he looks great against the 'heavies', he's an athletic freak. Nobody claimed he wasn't. However, it's a list of his peers, right? I understand there's a difference between a DT and a NT, but if we're going to try to get a serious analyzation of his peers, we should include all NTs currently in the NFL, right?
I'm sure an argument could be made for or against a player either way, if you choose which people he's compared against. Dexter McCluster could look very, very bad when compared to WRs that are sub-200 lbs. There are plenty of talented receivers who aren't that big. He would probably look better when compared to RBs sub-200 lbs. There aren't quite as many, so he has a better chance (similar to how Poe has a better chance of scoring highly when comparing him to so few players). So if we're going to get all serious about his skill-sets and how they compare to his peers, let's actually judge him by his peers, eh? Let's make a list of all the NTs currently playing in the NFL and how they did at the combine, when they did contribute to the drills, to see how he stacks up.
Even then, regardless of how he does; I'm not sold. I'm willing to give him his chance, and hope for the best, I hope he's a Pro Bowl beast,.
Only time will tell, but until then, let's get some fairness in here, eh? We all agree that Matt Cassel is at best (at least to this point in his career) an above average passer, not great, not 'franchise' quality QB, just above average/average, right? But if you compare him to the right people, like you're doing with Poe, instead of ALL QBs (like finding a common bond between him, JaMarcus Russel, and Tim Tebow, where Cassel comes in very, very favorably)..
I call for a re-do on this article, comparing Poe to all NTs, not just the fatties, which skew the results. It probably won't change the amount of EPAs much (maybe one or two, methinks, at most), but if we're going to got his route of analyzing things, I'd want to make sure it's really a good comparison between NTs, and not just 'a few big guys' who play NT.
@KC MikeG @BigGil I would trust Hillis in that role a lot more than Bannon, to be honest (although I'd want Mughelli + Hillis as a RB). I've posted it a few times here over the last couple months, but in pass-blocking efficiency for RBs/FBs combined (so hundreds of players in the NFL), from 2008-2010, Hillis was ranked fourth best. So he's a damned good blocking FB/RB, which would help immensely on pass plays. Also, Jamaal Charles was in the top 15 on that list, in the same time period, so imagine having our much-improved offensive line, and two of the best blocking backs in the league all staying back to protect Cassel. That'll surely give even slow-coverage-reading Cassel time to pick apart a defense, you'd think.
I will be happy either way, but I'd want either Mughelli or Hillis as the FB. If Hillis is our FB, and the FB is only in on approximately 30-50% of snaps, depending on your offense, then he can still have some gas in the tank for snaps at RB too, to keep him happy and hungry.
Also, if we needed a FB for let's say a goal-line situation, and we wanted Hillis to be the 'pounder' near the goal line, to smash it in, imagine sticking Dontari Poe at FB for a play, using his big ass body and his super-swift speed to smash through the line. At some point it's a physics game, and 350 lbs with a head of speed moving at 4.8 40-speed with a 5 yard lead-up to a guy just coming out of his stance who weighs less than him? Yeah, that dudes going flying, sorry. And if anyone else is left after the Poe ball smashes through the line, I'd be confident in Hillis' ability to get one yard (or inches) when it's him on one guy. Lower those shoulders and blast them. Oh god I just got tingles thinking about a Poe/Hillis smash-mouth goal-line rushing attack. Somebody get me on the phone with Romeo, stat!