Finally some love! (LB Rankings)

[NYPacker]

I know a lot of people were disgruntled about how Jason Cole from Yahoo! ranked our D-line. I think he had the Lions rated above us. His reasons were pretty poor, but after much deliberation he explains his thoughts here: Mailbag: Disturbed by D-line rankings - NFL - Yahoo! Sports

In his latest installment he ranks the best LB corps in the NFL and guess who cracked into the top 3? LB rankings: The NFL's weakening strongside - NFL - Yahoo! Sports

 

[Green_Bay_Packers]

Im happy with 3 but come on Dallas at 2? You cant be serious

 

[PackersRS]

Im happy with 3 but come on Dallas at 2? You cant be serious

I think Ware alone puts them at that point...

 

[NYPacker]

I think Ware alone puts them at that point...

They not only have Ware but his clone on the making, former first round pick Anthony Spencer is quickly becoming a star. They have a good group of veteran ILBs in Brooking and James. Plus they drafted a potential first round ILB Sean Lee in the second round. IMO they got a steal.

 

[PackersRS]

They not only have Ware but his clone on the making, former first round pick Anthony Spencer is quickly becoming a star. They have a good group of veteran ILBs in Brooking and James. Plus they drafted a potential first round ILB Sean Lee in the second round. IMO they got a steal.

Calm down on the star thing.

He had 6 sacks in 16 games starting. After 3 years in the league. With Ware getting double-teamed in every sinlge play.

So what you call Brad Jones, that had 4 sacks in 7 games starting, in his rookie year, with CM3 only being doubled on the last couple games???

And their ILBs are good, but Barnett is much better than them. (though both of them are better than Hawk and Chillar)

I think, all in all, the Cowboys are GROSSLY overrated. With the exception of Witten and Ware, that is. The rest is just ludicrous.

QB - Romo. He's good. He's very good. He's not an elite QB by any stretch.
RB - Talk about being overrated. Barber was good when he was a surprise, complete failure as a #1 back. Felix Jones is fast, but injury prone. Don't call Tashard Choice a great back, please.
WR - Miles had a GREAT season. One. Completely disappeared in big games. The others are just busts. Roy Williams, for crying out loud.
TE - Witten is great. Great blocker, great catcher. Runs very good routes, is tough. Isn't exactly a matchup nightmare, like Finley, but one of the most completes, if not THE most complete TE in the NFL.
OL - OLD and FAT. Who's their LT again? Barbre?
DL - Good DL. Olshansky is just fat at this point, but Spears is solid and Ratliff is very good (but he's thought as Joe Mean Greene by some).
LB - Ware is a beast. THE best OLB in the league. Spencer is a good compliment, but he's not in the same league as Woodley and Harrison. The ILBs are very solid, specially against the run, which compliments well Ratliff who's a free-lancer. All in all, one of the best front-7 in football. But they're not the Steel curtain, contrary to *Cowboys fans opinion.
CBs - Newman is good, but is old. Mike Jenkins hasn't shown anything. The rest is null.
S - Who?

All in all, a good team, that if played like they were the underdogs, could go somewhere. But overhyped to the max. They're certainly not one of the top-8 teams in the league...





*generally a fair weather fan who only cheers when his team is good, and who has zero knowledge of real football, and believes everything the four letter station tells him.

 

[Green_Bay_Packers]

I think Ware alone puts them at that point...

oh ok fair enough i just dont rate the Cowboy's highly

 

[aaronqb]

I know a lot of people were disgruntled about how Jason Cole from Yahoo! ranked our D-line. I think he had the Lions rated above us. His reasons were pretty poor, but after much deliberation he explains his thoughts here: Mailbag: Disturbed by D-line rankings - NFL - Yahoo! Sports

In his latest installment he ranks the best LB corps in the NFL and guess who cracked into the top 3? LB rankings: The NFL's weakening strongside - NFL - Yahoo! Sports

How can a defense that ranked #2 in the NFL have a D-Line that ranks #23. Makes no sense.

 

[Pugger]

How can a defense that ranked #2 in the NFL have a D-Line that ranks #23. Makes no sense.

Because this clown doesn't understand that the function of the D line in the 3-4. The big guys up front in the 3-4 take up blockers to enable the LBers to make the plays.

 

[dansz15]

Someday in the near future, NFL people will talk about how the Packers linebacking corps is like some four-headed nightmare.

Aside from all the talk about other teams, this is an awesome quote... I love it!

 

[NYPacker]

Calm down on the star thing.

He had 6 sacks in 16 games starting. After 3 years in the league. With Ware getting double-teamed in every sinlge play.

So what you call Brad Jones, that had 4 sacks in 7 games starting, in his rookie year, with CM3 only being doubled on the last couple games???

And their ILBs are good, but Barnett is much better than them. (though both of them are better than Hawk and Chillar)

I think, all in all, the Cowboys are GROSSLY overrated. With the exception of Witten and Ware, that is. The rest is just ludicrous.

QB - Romo. He's good. He's very good. He's not an elite QB by any stretch.
RB - Talk about being overrated. Barber was good when he was a surprise, complete failure as a #1 back. Felix Jones is fast, but injury prone. Don't call Tashard Choice a great back, please.
WR - Miles had a GREAT season. One. Completely disappeared in big games. The others are just busts. Roy Williams, for crying out loud.
TE - Witten is great. Great blocker, great catcher. Runs very good routes, is tough. Isn't exactly a matchup nightmare, like Finley, but one of the most completes, if not THE most complete TE in the NFL.
OL - OLD and FAT. Who's their LT again? Barbre?
DL - Good DL. Olshansky is just fat at this point, but Spears is solid and Ratliff is very good (but he's thought as Joe Mean Greene by some).
LB - Ware is a beast. THE best OLB in the league. Spencer is a good compliment, but he's not in the same league as Woodley and Harrison. The ILBs are very solid, specially against the run, which compliments well Ratliff who's a free-lancer. All in all, one of the best front-7 in football. But they're not the Steel curtain, contrary to *Cowboys fans opinion.
CBs - Newman is good, but is old. Mike Jenkins hasn't shown anything. The rest is null.
S - Who?

All in all, a good team, that if played like they were the underdogs, could go somewhere. But overhyped to the max. They're certainly not one of the top-8 teams in the league...

Okay hold your horses there. I never said anything about how great the Cowboys team was. In fact I share your view in that they're a very overrated team. They have false hopes of a superbowl after finishing last season with a mediocre playoff performance. However their LB corps. are nothing to scoff about, I will give credit where credit is due. Case in argument here is Anthony Spencer. I was basing my opinion from PFF where they rate him as the 3rd best 3-4 OLB in the league ProFootballFocus.com - By Position. While I don't think he truly is where they rank him to be, he may very well get up there in the next couple of years. He provides tremendous pressure and proves to be more than just an adequate complement to Ware.

 

[PackersRS]

Okay hold your horses there. I never said anything about how great the Cowboys team was. In fact I share your view in that they're a very overrated team. They have false hopes of a superbowl after finishing last season with a mediocre playoff performance. However their LB corps. are nothing to scoff about, I will give credit where credit is due. Case in argument here is Anthony Spencer. I was basing my opinion from PFF where they rate him as the 3rd best 3-4 OLB in the league ProFootballFocus.com - By Position. While I don't think he truly is where they rank him to be, he may very well get up there in the next couple of years. He provides tremendous pressure and proves to be more than just an adequate complement to Ware.

I know you weren't. I made that to say that, as for Anthony Spencer, the whole Cowboys team is grossly overrated.

And as for Spencer, like I said, if you grade him that way, you have to grade Brad Jones as well. I really like PFF's work, hell, I tend to use their rankings a lot, but they ranked Kampman ahead of Elvis Dummervil. I mean, REALLY????????? They value tackles almost as much as sacks... They don't even take into consideration fumbles forced and recovered when evaluating a player...

 

[OurWarNow]

Okay hold your horses there. I never said anything about how great the Cowboys team was. In fact I share your view in that they're a very overrated team. They have false hopes of a superbowl after finishing last season with a mediocre playoff performance. However their LB corps. are nothing to scoff about, I will give credit where credit is due. Case in argument here is Anthony Spencer. I was basing my opinion from PFF where they rate him as the 3rd best 3-4 OLB in the league ( I had to remove this because I need a post count of 10 or greater to post a link!--he referenced profootballfocus). While I don't think he truly is where they rank him to be, he may very well get up there in the next couple of years. He provides tremendous pressure and proves to be more than just an adequate complement to Ware.

I don't mean to take sides here, but I just visited the site you referenced. After looking through, I wouldn't put much stock into PFF, especially after looking at how they had the HB's rated. I'm not sure how their system works, but there is something severely wrong with the fact Brandon Jackson is ranked 18 and Ryan Grant is at 28. That's just...insane.

 

[NYPacker]

I don't mean to take sides here, but I just visited the site you referenced. After looking through, I wouldn't put much stock into PFF, especially after looking at how they had the HB's rated. I'm not sure how their system works, but there is something severely wrong with the fact Brandon Jackson is ranked 18 and Ryan Grant is at 28. That's just...insane.

Well the thing about PFF is that it doesn't really tell you who is better than who, but who was more productive than the other. For instance as PackersRS noted, they ranked Kampman higher than Elvis Dumervil. We all know Dumervil led the league in sacks last year and was a far better LB than Kampy. However in the amount of snaps that Kampman got as well as the plays that he made (You have to factor in that Kampman has great tackling skills and was part of our No. 1 rush defense) that Kampman was more productive as comparitively to the plays Dumervil made.

 

[PackersRS]

Well the thing about PFF is that it doesn't really tell you who is better than who, but who was more productive than the other. For instance as PackersRS noted, they ranked Kampman higher than Elvis Dumervil. We all know Dumervil led the league in sacks last year and was a far better LB than Kampy. However in the amount of snaps that Kampman got as well as the plays that he made (You have to factor in that Kampman has great tackling skills and was part of our No. 1 rush defense) that Kampman was more productive as comparitively to the plays Dumervil made.

The thing with PFF is that they atribute the same values to stats that don't have the same importance for some positions.

They're absolutely right, Dumervil lacks against the run, and Kampman excells at that, even playing OLB. But coverage, and specially pass rushing skills are much more important than playing the run for an OLB (yes, I know, depends on the scheme, but there's a reason that premium pass rushers are paid top dollar and okay pass rushers that are great against the run aren't).

They do the same thing with RBs. They take receiving and blocking into the same value as running with the ball, which isn't true (again, depending on the scheme).

That's why PFF's stats are much more interesting when comparing aspects of players, rather than overall production.

If you're looking for who's the better pass rusher, they're great. If you're looking for who's the better OLB, their rankings are not so good (in fact, it's an incredibly subjective topic. I don't think you can take stats to distinguish players overall properly, but that's another issue).

 

[OurWarNow]

Ahh, after the explanations, that makes sense. Still, I still don't see how B Jax was that much more productive than Ryan Grant. Perhaps in pass blocking...but overall?

 

[PackersRS]

Ahh, after the explanations, that makes sense. Still, I still don't see how B Jax was that much more productive than Ryan Grant. Perhaps in pass blocking...but overall?

Yeah. Like I said, I don't care how you grade, if you end up with Bjax over Grant, you're doing something terribly wrong.

 

[TheGiftedApe]

My 2 year old American BullDog knows as much as jason cole about the NFL.

 

[Wolvi]

Can we get him to help find a DB to draft next year?