01-13-2023, 11:04 AM
(01-13-2023, 10:55 AM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: Were Crocker or Newman good outside of Zimmer's scheme? Michael Johnson and Peko were mid at best and nowhere near as good as their Sam Hubbard and DJ Reader modern equivalents.
Trey Hendrickson has 35.5 sacks in the last 3 seasons. Gilberry has 34.0 career sacks in 9 years. Robert Geathers has 34.0 career sacks in 11 years. Sam Hubbard only needs 14.0 sacks over the next 5 years to match Michael Johnson.
JJo left because the FO got cheap on guaranteed money and they then kept trying (and failing) to replace him. Leon Hall tore his achilles twice in Zimmer's time here and became a shell of his former self, he only had a 3-4 year span of actually being Leon Hall. The Bengals still kept trotting out a top defense.
I never said Zimmer had no talent to work with, I am saying that he never had the FO's support in free agency to give him the same level of talent to work with that Anarumo has been given, yet still routinely produced top-10 defenses. He had a top-10 defense with the Bengals before Dunlap and Atkins were even in the NFL and before Reggie Nelson got traded for peanuts to the Bengals.
The only players on the Bengals defense during that timespan that were clearly superior in talent to their modern counterparts are Geno Atkins, Vontaze Burfict (he was only there for the final 2 years of Zimmer, and that was when he was 2nd Team All-Pro), and Reggie Nelson. That's a 4th round pick, a UDFA, and a guy that was traded to the Bengals for David Jones.
Doesn't matter if they were good outside of Zimmer's scheme, because they played in that scheme and were good in it. ZImmer called Peko in his prime THE best NT in the game. Hall was outstanding. You wouldn't say Dunlap in his prime was a superior talent?
Look, I'm not saying Zimmer wasn't good, he was one of my favorite coaches. That said, I don't believe his players played as hard for him as Lou's do for him. And I truly think Lou and his coaches are much better at developing the backups all the way down the depth chart than any Bengal coach ever on either side of the ball.
