Thoughts on Dre K ?

[*Wyche'sWarrior*]

(03-16-2016, 02:00 PM)PDub80 Wrote: Look, count me in with you on Peko and Maualuga doing their jobs effectively. I'm all in on that. They were fine. Not world beaters, but certainly good at their jobs. Maualuga in particular has been way better.

- Lamur was terrible to watch out there - certainly worse than even Dre Kirk when you look at the amount of times they made llittle impact or were abused. Thank God Heath Miller retired because he had Lamur on a leash and collar. And thank God again for no one else having to read another article about how Lamur can run and cover. Uhhhhh.... no.

- To your point of having some poorly rated guys on defense I would counter point that with having some really big time difference makers to counter balance that. Not every guy is going to have a great grade every game or the majority of the time. Every team has weaker players, even the ones ranked highly.

-I just saw a statistic where Dre-K finished #11 in passes defended. One of the best in the league! Yet he was the only one in the top 30 or so without an INT! NO big plays. A bunch of tackles, 7 assisted, no sacks, no hurries, no forced fumbles. A big bunch of 0s across the board. You know why he has 70 tackles and only 7 assists? Because teams were completed balls on him. If it were run support he would have more assists. http://espn.go.com/nfl/statistics/player/_/stat/defense/sort/passesDefended

Quick personal story to keep this in perspective....
- This whole "Is Dre Kirkpatrick any good or not" debate reminds me of the goalie on my high school soccer team. For the last 25 years we have been almost always state top 10 ranked, have been to several state Final 4s, and are one of the winning-est programs in Ohio boys sports history. For 17 years running the goalie from 2 of my groups's 4 years (he was in my class) has remained the school leader in shutouts and goals against average. But he was TERRIBLE. Absolutely a mess back there. We just had nobody else who actually liked goalie and had the size to do it. So, even though he is rated #1 in several statistical rankings, he is without question one of the bottom 3 keepers our school as ever had when it comes to quality of play and ability. It was the guys in front of him on D who fought to not let anyone shoot from certain areas of the field because we knew that if anyone got a shot off that wasn't right at him, we were risking it. And THAT is why his average is the lowest and he has the most shutouts.

^ That, to me, sums up Dre-K. The defense succeeded in spite of him a lot of times. YES, he makes plays occasionally. But in general, he's a liability. 

Very good analogy, and agree on Peko and Rey.  I thought Peko was done in '14, turns out he just needed a more effective rotation to keep him fresher.  Rey M. has come leaps and bounds from where he was....probably a result from being moved.

AS for DreK, the stats mislead a tad....the play of the front four, and the help over the top from a terrific duo at Safety, coupled with the coordinator's ability to leave Pacman on an island masks a lot of his deficiencies, in my opinion.  It is what it is.......