07-20-2015, 01:50 PM
(07-20-2015, 01:27 PM)fredtoast Wrote: So let me get this straight. Three of out front seven (Peko, Geathers, Maualuga) are the worst at their positions in the league yet we still had one of the top defenses in the league for years with them in the lineup?
Peko has been a bottom 10 starting NT for about 2-3 years, Geathers has been a bottom 5 at starting 4-3 DE for a few years, and Maualuga was terrible 1 year and mediocre most others with some poor playoff performance(s) making people get on him more than they should. I do find it interesting that he "improved" when he was handed a decreased workload on the inside. He was a stout SLB, I honestly have no idea why the coaching staff hasn't put him back where he's played his best football.
You don't think it's possible for a team to have a top 10 defense for a few years with 2 out of 11 starters (not even mentioning the amount of players that see significant snaps) not being very good? Every player on the field isn't going to be great, I'm sure most of us realize that you can't have 11 All-Pros out there, but we can absolutely criticize them fairly and hope for an eventual replacement without needing told how they're all magically "better than people think".
Take 2012 for example, there were 13 guys with 594+ snaps and 3 more guys with 248+. You seem to think it's out of the realm of possibility to have a top 10 defense if a couple of those guys are less than average at their respective position. That's odd. I bet you would find weak links on almost every defense in the NFL year in and year out. Hell, Chris Clemons was pretty bad against the run and not very good overall in 2013, does that mean the Seahawks couldn't have possibly had the best defense in the league that year? We both know the answer to that.
The Steelers had one of the top defenses in the league in both 2010 and 2011. Ziggy Hood was absolutely awful and Nick Eason was considered one of, if not THE worst 3-4 DEs in the game around that time period. Pittsburgh also had some question marks at CB in a lot of their years as one of the top defensive teams.
Those are just a couple of examples, I can find you many, many more if you'd like.
