DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Pure Football Forum My guess on our LB's

I am going under several assumptions and any one of those assumptions could be wrong but I have to start somewhere.

What I am assuming:

We drafted Peppers for a Mark Barron type role.

Gregg Williams loves him some Nickel defense and it is most likely our base.

He also loved the Dime defense and often only had 1 LB on the field.

He might have loved the dime because he didn't have a ton of decent Lb's.

So if Nickel is our base, that means 2 LB's on the field and those two LB's should be Collins and Kirksey. Those 2 LB's are Sam and Mike and I'll get to the reason why in just a second, but right now lets just go with that. I would guess that Collins would be Sam and Kirksey would be Mike but I could just as easily see it the other way or Collins normally at Sam but moving to Mike in the dime package. Both guys are pretty versatile and decent in pass coverage. Collins has a little more bulk to cover the TE. Kirksey is built almost identically to Ogletree but perhaps he doesn't have as much core strength.

But wait, you say! Surely Greg Williams is going to run a base 4-3 sometimes and he will. When that happens, the weak side LB spot is filled by Mark Barron. He won't call it that. He calls it Will Safety. But that is where he lines up. That should also be be where Peppers lines up in the few times that we run a base 4-3 as well.

I see a lot of discussions about who that 3rd LB is going to be and the truth is that I don't think there is going to be one.

Good post. This is the reason I think Williams was reportedly so big on Peppers. He's basically his Will on some downs and SS on others.

I'm not sold on the pick, but it will be interesting to see how he pans outs because there is no doubt he has potential.

Last year for the Rams Williams played with two linebackers on the field. One of those two linebackers was Mark Barron.

I think Kirksey is about to lose a bunch of playing time.

They did play a lot of Dime (1 LB) too. I think that may have more to do with their LB depth then anything.

Williams appears to tailor his defense to the players that he has, so I am expecting the best 11 to be on the field in some shape or form. I could be wrong, but I think Kirksey is safe.

Are you including Barron as a linebacker? He and Ogletree both played nearly 100% of the snaps.

In the Dime no. He plays more of a safety role. Also, a few times in the Nickel, he lined up in the Nickelback spot.

I think Williams played like that because he only had two LBs that were worth having on the field with the Rams (Ogletree and Barron). Cory Littleton (who?) had the next most snaps at LB and the rest of the group included Nic Grigsby, Bryce Hager, and rookie Josh Forrest (6th round).

I think Kirksey will play a good bit as last year he was one of our better players, and Williams is said to be good at adapting to the talent he has available.

Got it. On Pro Football Reference they identify him as a linebacker so the snap count thing can get a little convoluted.

That's what I'm hoping

Kirksey was a bright spot in our D last season, and lord knows we didn't have many. He gets after the football and is a good tackler. Yeah , I agree he is safe lol.

Oh, I'm hoping he's not just safe. I'm hoping he plays a major portion of our plays.

Collins & Kirksey both need to play a major amount of snaps for us.


EDIT: We can't afford to not play the talented players that we do have

Agree with you Petey

I think we'll play a 4-2-5 lineup with Collins and Kirksey at LB, Peppers in a rover position, Haden and Taylor at CB, and some combination of Campbell, Kindred, Reyonlds, and Powell at the 2 safety spots.

I could see Peppers as a MLB with how good he is against the run.

....Please no. Run stopping MLB? I think you are confusing him with Pepper Johnson.

It's a shame we don't have a single high fs. Maybe Reynolds could be good enough? My ideal set up would be a 4-2-5 cover 1 with 3 CBS and peppers as under or rover depending on the read.

Agreed. Hopefully someone can develop into that or something. But that is what I was thinking too. Someone like Tashaun Gipson would have been perfect for that. We don't need a star though, just a Brian Russell type of guy. Of course Brian Russell was pretty money and only given one season here because of regime change

You are correct. While I didn't care for Gipson it was because of the money he'd command. Realistically that position will just get a lot of int but they don't really deserve to be paid a ton. Man do I wish we could be gotten nate gerry. He was a better all around Brian Russel. Would be been perfect over top when we upgrade cb next year

If what crs15 says is true, about the bulk load being a 2 LB'er formation - then it's going to be Kirko and Collins. And I feel it'll be that the bulk load of the snaps. Majority.

I'm not familiar with William's scheme or play calling to be open and honest about it.

No he actually played some MLB at college among his many other places and he is big enough I think to play it. Either that or SS for stopping the run. I really hope they don't use him on offense and instead let him specialize a bit his first two years.