mradtke66
Cheesehead
Um, what? Denver under Shannahan had incredibly undersized offensive linemen during his tenure. We have actually had bigger linemen than they did. The smallest guy we've had under McCarthy was Scott Wells and maybe Tretter. Bhaktiari struggled to stay over 300 as a rookie, but that's a long time ago now.
Some, but it would be scheme dependent. If you're big enough to maintain gap integrity, there's a good chance you're not fast enough to maintain outside-contain. Or beat the tackle around the edge rushing the passer. Jenkins was at 4-3 end to beat up in the running game. They correctly slid him down to tackle when it was time to rush the passer.
Using Peppers as your example is as "bad" as using Reggie previously. His nickname is the freak for a reason.
Kampman is a bad choice, but for a different reason. He struggled at OLB. He's the perfect example of a guy who's body just said, "NOPE!" and he couldn't hack it standing up.
We had a guy who got CLOSE to that in Aaron Rouse. He was 6'4" and 225-ish. And he was unable to light up receivers because he wasn't good enough in coverage.
Life is an experiment in compromise. If you're that tall, you probably don't have the hips to sink and change direction...which was exactly Rouse's problem. If you're big, strong MF, you probably aren't fast. If you're fast, you probably aren't too big. Etc, etc, etc.
We had them--all of Raji, Pickett, and Brown had listed playing weights of 340 (well, Raji is listed at 337.)
Don't get me wrong, I'd like to have the mythical players too, but they don't exist. The very, very few that do or have (Reggie, Peppers) once a decade type players.
