13 years of Marvin Drafting LBs

[Bengal Dude]

(10-28-2015, 11:23 AM)Benton Wrote: Just my opinion, but I've thought for a while that Marvin thought he could coach a later LBer up. That he could turn a third, fourth or fifth round pick into the next Ray Lewis. Just find a guy with the right size/build and then coach him into bein a better player.

The trouble is, that's a rarity, even for programs that are really good at developing certain positions. For whatever reason — and I couldn't even guess — we aren't good at developing LBers. CBs, yeah. Linemen, yeah. WRs, yeah. We can take a third or fourth round wide receiver or linemen and have a quality player in a couple years, but we don't develop linebackers that way.

I'd say that's how I feel right now. After take Rivers and Maualuga and neither one becoming a star, Marvin seems to take a chance on finding diamonds in the rough. Burfict is the only guy who we "coached up" but the guy already had 1st round talent. We just had to fix what is between his ears. We just seem content with mediocre LBs.

LBs who leave here tend to not do much on their new teams for a few years. Landon Johnson played 3 more seasons after he left here and his tackle totals never matched his worst season here. Skuta went to SF and basically started off as just a ST before developing into a good rotational player for them. I can only imagine what will happen to Lamur if he moves on after this season.