DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Pure Football Forum Training Camp part 2

Duke has been here for 3 seasons, I don't think he will surprise us much,but who knows maybe Haley can do it.

my hope is that Duke is even more effective with better players around him. He can be lethal coming out of the backfield if he's singled up by a LB

for his career his a combination of 447 catches and rush attempts. but only 10 TDs
he only averages a TD every 44th time he touches the ball. and he doesnt have alot of big chunk plays either.

IIRC he had a great game in San Diego 2 years ago ... and he played all over the place looking for matchups. That's what I envision

Duke is usually effective at catching because he runs out of the backfield and a linebacker is assigned to him. Not many linebackers can cover Duke.

I doubt Duke would be as effective if a corner was assigned to him.

thats true he is a mismatch for LBers but now defenses are finding LBers with that kind of speed to stay on the hip of RB like Johnson.
Johnson is fast but he lacks that start stop start accelerate ability.
he has a true build for a RB not so much a WR..his catch radius isnt that big
he was a RB at Miami for a reason.

i agree, LBs that can cover are getting more popular ... but that's okay, defenses can't cover everything. Someone's gonna be single covered with a mismatch if they are subbing in guys to take care of Duke, Njoku, or whoever

I think Dukes numbers will be dependant on the growth of Njoku.
but between Chubb and Hyde getting the bulk of the carries I dont see Duke a factor in the running game

Corners have a hard time bringing him down once he gets the ball though. After the catch there are not many better.

agreed

good ... no more blitzes that don't work and leave our LBs exposed please

Browns playing more base defense? Say it isn't so, Myles Garrett

https://brownswire.usatoday.com/2018/08/...-myles-garrett/



A provocative tweet from NFL Network reporter Aditi Kinkhabwala reveals what could be a disturbing development for the Browns defense.

Kinkhabwala, who has been stationed in Cleveland for a lot of training camp practices, revealed she talked with Browns star pass rusher Myles Garrett about the defensive philosophy of coordinator Gregg Williams. Garrett’s admission that the “streamlined” defense will see even more of the Browns in the base 4-3-4 alignment.

The Browns already played far more in the base defense than any other team in 2017. The 66 percent of snaps with 4 linemen and 3 linebackers last year was more than double the league average.

It was not effective. Only the Raiders allowed more big plays (20-plus yards) in the passing game, and the Browns surrendered the highest completion percentage (68.6) and QB rating (102.3) of any defense.

From the above-linked piece I wrote in June:

“Cleveland had 245 snaps where their base defense was matched up against 11 personnel.”

That means by default that a linebacker is responsible for covering a wide receiver. There are ways around that, be it zone or moving up a safety into man coverage, but it’s a situation the vast majority of defensive coordinators desperately try to avoid.

If Williams didn’t learn the error of his ways in the 0-16 season, where the team successfully smothered the run but couldn’t stop even bad passing offenses most of the year, it’s going to be a frustrating fall at FirstEnergy Stadium. Let’s hope Garrett was misquoted or purposely misleading in his statement.

Hmmmmm.........I think that reporter doesn't understand football all that well.

I read that and thought the same thing. Seems to me that if you can stay in your base D, you are doing pretty good.

If you can run your base defense successfully 100% of the time, you should run your defense 100% of the time. We obviously can't and won't do that.

We ran our base defense more last year than anyone else and our defense was terrible. This was [probably] because our secondary was horrible last year.

Hopefully we have enough depth in the secondary this year to not have to run the base defense so much. Having three linebackers on the field when the other team has three or four wide receivers on the field is not a winning formula.

It might be if your starting SS is either Peppers or Kindred.

Agreed. I just wonder with the signing of Kendricks, what we're going to do at the LB position.

I'd like us to run more Nickel, but where are all the reps going to come from for two LBs on the field with four good players

it looked to me at practice that we were aligning in a 4-4 for our "base"

yes!

We have 3 or 4 DL on the side right now. This isn't a surprise.

Agreed. Plus it NEVER hurts to have a solid interior rotation.

Ogbah - Coley - Hankins - Garrett

That looks better to me

Ogbah- Ogunjobi- Hankins- Garret

Is my preference.

I've been hoping like Hell ever since we got Haley that he'd be the difference make. That he would turn Duke into what we thought he'd be ever since his rookie season.

Hankins would give us some much-needed beef on the interior. We got pushed around a bit in NY. Losing Shelton left us w/a lot of quicker guys who aren't all that stout.

One thing to remember, defensive linemen rotate like crazy. You really don't want to just talk about the guys who start the games. You need to be deep at that unit.

I hope Hankins is right. He was pretty good in NY, but something went wrong. I just don't know what it was.

I'm thinking Duke's touches might decrease under Haley. Hue used him a lot.

Losing Coley hurt our run defense.

That guy is hard to dig out of the middle. He is built like a tank, and I think that he is the reason that Shelton was moved.

we need more "oomph" in the middle ... that was pretty clear to me against NYG

I haven't followed his career closely since his OSU days. I do remember him getting props early in his time with the Giants. What might have happened in Indy is mysterious to me. Getting released one year after signing a +$30 mill contract.

Anybody know anything about his time with the Colts?

I just found this on Google. It's encouraging about his ability to play but still leaves unanswered how he ended up getting released.

From March 17...

Colts surprisingly cut Johnathan Hankins one year after giving him $27 million deal

The Colts are apparently stealing Bill Belichick's "no days off" mantra. On Saturday, after already agreeing to a massive trade of draft picks with the Jets, the Colts went ahead and made a surprising personnel move that serves as yet another reminder that the huge contracts players get in free agency aren't always what they appear to be.

One year after signing defensive lineman Johnathan Hankins to a three-year, $27 million contract, the Colts cut him.

The timing of the cut isn't surprising. If the Colts were going to cut him, Saturday was going to be the day. According to Pro Football Talk's Mike Florio, $4.5 million of his $8 million salary would've been fully guaranteed on Sunday.

But it's still surprising -- not just because the Colts signed him to a big contract a year ago, but because he's a good young player and the Colts need good young players. In 2017, Hankins graded out as Pro Football Focus' 20th-best interior defender, one spot ahead of Leonard Williams and two spots behind Stephon Tuitt. He's not much of a pass-rusher, but he's solid against the run, posting the 14th-best run-stop percentage at his position group, according to Pro Football Focus. Guess who finished in 15th: Aaron Donald.

Obviously, Hankins isn't the same caliber of player as Donald, but he's a solid defensive lineman who will be 26 when next season begins. Teams looking to bolster their defensive lines should be eager to compete for his services.

For the Colts, the move likely comes down to their coaching change, which has them switching defensive schemes. Citing a league source, Stephen Holder of the The Indianapolis Star reported that the scheme change "was the driving force behind the decision to part with Hankins." Holder also reported that the move saves the Colts roughly $8.5 million against the cap after they paid him $10.5 million for his services in 2017.

While the Colts made a huge move to trade out of the No. 3 pick on Saturday, they haven't been all too active this offseason after hiring Frank Reich as their new coach in the aftermath of the Josh McDaniels fiasco. The release of Hankins turns defensive tackle into an area of need, which could be the position they target with the sixth-overall pick in the draft or any other of the draft picks they collected on Saturday. In addition to the Jets' first-round pick, the Colts also received the 37th-overall pick, the 49th-overall pick, and a 2019 second-round pick.


https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/colts...7-million-deal/

Denzel Ward practicing after stopping yesterday with sore ankle

https://twitter.com/ScottPetrak/status/1029457594040168448

Baker Mayfield just got pick sixed by Jermaine Grace. Peppers would have done the same two plays earlier if he’d have caught the ball.

https://twitter.com/AkronJackson/status/1029459572233306112

Pick sixed by ... Jermaine Grace?????? Mayfield sucks. He obviously has a noodle arm. We should cut him now .....

You certainly do sound like a Browns fan there, sonny-

Sorry .... just getting in practice for when we lose a game ......

Nice! I think it's important that we are all on top of our game come time to start the season.

Mayfield sucks and Peppers sucks worse!!