Duke

[Whatever]

(11-21-2018, 09:52 PM)SunsetBengal Wrote: Yes, and Al Davis used to draft the fastest players he could, regardless of football IQ, playing ability, or anything, just speed.  Where did that get the Raiders?

My point is, sure speed is important to a football player.  Let me emphasize FOOTBALL player, meaning he's also got to have natural instincts and football smarts in order for those physical skills to mean a damn thing..

Jefferson was a 2nd team All American last year.  He's more than just a guy with a LB frame that can run fast.

PJ Dawson was supposed to have great football instincts and IQ coming out of college, and he didn't pan out.  Burfict, Brown, and Vigil are in that same mold.  We've been focused more on football IQ than athletic talent at LB for quite awhile, and what we've wound up with is a slow, unathletic LB corps that can't cover RB's and TE's and gets exploited by mobile QB's.  It's tough to find LB's that are freak athletes and have great instincts and football smarts outside of round 1.  

There's tons of freak athletes that don't pan out because they don't get the mental part of the game.  There's tons of guys with great football IQ's that just don't have the physical traits necessary to cut it in the NFL.   Unless you're going to throw 1st round picks and top FA dollars at the position, you need to get some plus athletes that can compensate for their lack of instincts with their athletic ability and some guys with high enough football IQ's to compensate for being lesser athletes.