"Don’t worry about the future; or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubblegum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind; the kind that blindside you at 4pm on some idle Tuesday."All told, that's good advice for life in general. But it's also pretty good advice for the game of football as well.
Often times, you should expect the unexpected. The things you think will be major problems often times never come to fruition, and things you never think about suddenly pop up and cause havoc.
Take our team in 2006, for example.
Going into the season, everyone knew that the running game would be fine and that the offensive line would play much better, but the real concern was at quarterback with John Parker Wilson. As it turned out, though, Ken Darby showed up overweight and out of shape, which resulted in a poor running game, the line continued to struggle, and John Parker Wilson had a solid year. On defense, despite key losses, people thought that Ramzee Robinson would anchor a good secondary, Terrance Jones would step in and adequately replace the out-going Demeco Ryans, Juwan Simpson would blossom in full, and the real concern was at middle linebacker. As it turned out, of course, Robinson struggled greatly against every quality receiver he faced and the secondary was relatively poor. Terrance Jones was a shell of Demeco Ryans, and that was when he was healthy, Juwan Simpson had a poor year as both a player and a leader, and the main pre-season, concern, middle linebacker, turned into the best player on the entire defense with the rise of Prince Hall.
And now we are here with the 2007 season just 17 days away, and nearly everyone cites the defense as a major concern. Generally speaking, the argument is that the front seven is in major trouble, but the secondary will be very strong.
As they say, though, expect the unexpected. Don't be surprised if the exact opposite of what is expected unfolds in 2007.
The front seven, surprisingly enough, has the potential to be a good, solid unit. I know you hear all of the doom and gloom, but it's nonetheless true. Just follow me.
At defensive end, we are pretty strong. Wallace Gilberry is a four-year starter, and one of the better pure defensive ends in the conference. He is experienced, and plays with as much as heart as you will see from anyone. Moreover, with the right scheme, he can rush the passer, and is a very good defender against the run, something that can't be said of a lot of the more glamorous defensive ends in this conference. Bobby Greenwood will start opposite Gilberry, and he too is a good player. He is very talented, no doubt there, has good size and he has looked well in Fall practice. This is the same guy who made several freshman All-America teams, don't forget that.
At linebacker, it's actually a surprisingly strong group.
Prince Hall returns, and he was a beast a year ago. Honestly, he was the best player on our defense as a redshirt freshman, and he played most of the year overweight and out of shape. As Coach Kines said, he was about a biscuit away from putting his hand on the ground (i.e. moving to defensive end). For 2007, however, Hall has dropped about twenty pounds and is in noticeably the best condition he's been in since he arrived at the Capstone. Better conditioning and a year of experience should only make Hall an even better player.
Rolando McClain is a true freshman, but it is not absurd to expect good things out of him. Physically, he is about as gifted of an athlete as you will find. He is massive (6'4 and 255 pounds), but is also very athletic. Moreover, he's a smart kid, and an extremely hard worker. Beyond that, he is impressing everyone in Fall camp thus far. In fact, yesterday Nick Saban even specifically praised McClain at length, and any time the Nicktator doles out praise to anyone, you should take notice. You almost feel wary of saying it this early in his career, but objectively speaking, McClain has legitimate NFL caliber talent. He's young, but he will start and should be productive.
Zeke Knight will start at outside linebacker, and he too has loads of talent. The truth is, Zeke Knight is one of the most talented players on the entire roster. He's very big, strong, and quick. He was a top-notch recruit out of high school, and could have played for anyone. And now he's finally where he should have been all along: linebacker. Moreover, for the first time in his career, he's healthy now that the heart murmur has been corrected. He, too, has looked good in Fall practice, and a productive year, at the very least, can be expected from him. And honestly, given his freakish athletic abilities, Knight could very well turn into a playmaker.
Keith Saunders will man the Jack position, and he's a fifth-year senior with a good deal of experience. We'll eventually have better players at the Jack position, but we shouldn't be overly concerned with Saunders. He's a solid player, and he fared quite well at the Jack position during the A-Day game, and will likely have a solid senior season.
The only real concern in the front seven is the nose tackle. Bryan Motley will almost certainly start there, and he has some potential on down the road. Unfortunately, at the moment, he is also young, undersized, and inexperienced. It's just not going to be pretty on the interior defensive line, no two ways about it. With that in mind, however, the harsh truth of the matter is that we have been piss-poor on the interior defensive line ever since Jarrett Johnson, Kenny King, and Kindal Moorehead graduated after the 2002 campaign. At bottom, we have relatively poor players replacing relatively poor players.
So, when you look at the front seven, it's actually fairly promising. No, they aren't the second coming of the Steel Curtain, but they do have some potential, and should have a relatively solid campaign in 2007. Certainly the interior tackle play is a concern, but as 2004 and 2005 showed, as long as the rest of the front seven plays well, you can make up for poor interior line play. Moreover, considering we will have two very big inside linebackers (one at 235 and the other at 255), that will go a long way to helping shore up the run defense.
Again, the front seven certainly won't be great, but as long as injuries don't hit us particularly hard, it could be relatively productive. All things considered, it should be relatively good against the run, and Saban will use his usual complicated blitz schemes to get pressure on the quarterback.
The pass defense, however, could be a major problem.
For whatever reason, people have this idea that our pass defense in 2006 was good, but that simply is not true, and the advanced statistics made that harsh truth blatantly obvious. Nevertheless, a lot of people believe that notion, and a corollary of that false belief is that our pass defense, particularly with the addition of Saban and his expert tutelage, should be good in 2007.
Unfortunately, it's unlikely to be that easy considering we must replace two starters from a secondary that wasn't particularly good to begin with.
Simeon Castille returns at cornerback, and he should have a good season. Aside from Castille, however, things are uncertain at best. Opposite Castille, no one in particular has stepped up to take the second cornerback spot. All in all, it seems to be a three-way battle between Kareem Jackson, Lionell Mitchell, and Marquis Johnson. Each player brings his a different skill set to the table, but at the moment none of them have stood out and taken the job. Moreover, the scary part is that Jackson and Johnson have never played any meaningful snaps, and Mitchell has only seen time as a nickel corner. It's all just one big question mark as to who starts opposite Simeon Castille.
The safety position, though, is a much bigger concern.
Rashad Johnson and Marcus Carter seem to be the likely starters, and honestly that's not a particularly good thing.
Johnson plays hard, but it's difficult to see him becoming more than just a replacement-level player. He is a former walk-on, and honestly his specialty may very well be special teams more than anything else. As mentioned earlier, he plays hard, but generally speaking there was just little-to-no production from him in 2006. Despite playing over 400 snaps, he registered only 26 tackles, no sacks, no interceptions, and no passes broken up. The Tennessee game provides a great example: despite Ainge throwing almost 50 passes and Johnson playing 60 snaps, he ended up with only two tackles (one solo, one assist), and no passes defensed of any kind. He seems like a good kid and a tough player, but there's just not much production to speak of from him.
Marcus Carter, while highly touted out of high school, is probably one of the worst safeties in the conference, and honestly he would be on the bench at most other SEC schools. He saw little meaningful playing time in 2004 and 2005, was terrible a year ago in 2006 as a part-time starter, and he looked just as bad at the A-Day game. He struggles in run support (see Keiland William's 38-yard touchdown run in the LSU game), plays with hesitance, and is poor in terms of pass coverage.
The harsh truth of the matter is that neither of these two guys are particularly good, and neither of them are "winning" starting jobs, so to speak. In reality, it's just that no one better has came along to beat them out, unfortunately. Honestly, we greatly need some other players to step up at safety. Michael Ricks could have probably started almost immediately, but he did not qualify. Justin Woodall is incredibly talented, but at the moment he still has not been able to crack the starting lineup. Corey Reamer has good size, but he's never been healthy, and doesn't seem to be contending for any meaningful playing time. Moreover, after knee surgery, his speed is a concern, which was probably one reason Saban experimented with him at linebacker in the Spring. Chris Lett could perhaps do it, but he hasn't practiced all Fall from complications with diabetes, so he is almost certainly going to redshirt. The truth is, if most practice reports are to be believed, Saban and company have tried a lot of different combinations at safety, and to this point nothing seems to be working particularly well.
All told, there are just a lot of problems regarding both safety positions, and unless someone else steps up over the next couple of weeks, those problems are likely to manifest themselves in a bad way once the regular season begins. With Carter and Johnson as the starters, at best they are serviceable players, and at worst they are major liabilities.
The truth be told, Saban will need to work his magic on these guys in terms of fundamentals, and also create a good bit of pressure on the quarterback for the Crimson Tide secondary to play near where most people think it will.
At the end of the day, things don't always turn out like you think. Don't be surprised if the front seven plays relatively well and the secondary struggles.
No comments:
Post a Comment