Good Linebackers Read...

http://www.behindthesteelcurtain.co...s-approach-to-the-mack-and-the-buck?ref=yahoo

I found this particularly interesting about Spence's role in the defense...

What's interesting about Spence is how much smaller he is than Timmons. Of course, that's a major reason why Spence was a Day 2 draft pick and Timmons was taken 15th overall. But with Spence, the Steelers add an interesting dynamic to their defense.

While Spence will not be labeled as a safety, I think his future direction is, essentially, one of a roving safety.

Looking back at the Steelers' win over New England in Week 8 of 2011, we saw the Steelers playing in nickel and dime packages for most of the game. Sylvester left the field, along with NT Casey Hampton, but oftentimes, we saw SS Troy Polamalu down in the box with Ss Ryan Clark and Ryan Mundy playing a Cover 2 shell.

Polamalu was essentially playing the mack linebacker position.

Obviously, Polamalu is going to be effective just about anywhere on the field, but bringing in a coverage-heavy linebacker who can provide at least some run support while getting the most out of the position in terms of coverage seems like a pretty effective strategy.

 

Meh with Lebeau running things 3-4 and 4-3 and even 5-5-1 subpackges get interesting under him and work...its why he is a genius

 

Timmons was the buck, but now Timmons is taking over Farriors role as the mack. The transition started last year I think. Foote is the buck as he always was.

I'm not sure why people say Farrior was the buck? Maybe he played it last year because he couldn't cover, or maybe he played it in his early years here. The article says the buck calls the plays, but I think it is whoever has the experience, because Farrior has always called the plays as the mack.

Foote was always good at throwing his body into blockers as a good buck should so I think he will do well. They said Sylvester is the future buck.

This gives me the feeling that Spence will be buried on the depth chart for a couple years.

 

I still say Spence is not going to play safety....if the Steelers don't think Taylor Mays can cover well enough to be a safety...then Spence is not a safety.

HACK

 

I think you have some things confused.
-Farrior has always been the "Buck", making the calls and being among the leaders in tackles if not the team leader in tackles.
-Timmons has always been the "Mack" due to his supposed coverage skills and athletic ability to rome or even switch to OLB.
-Foote has been the Mack until Timmons arrived, he pouted and left,returned to be back-up to both the "Mack & Buck" roles and even started some games this year as the "Buck" making the calls, and his success spelled Farriors end.
Farrior has over the past couple years lost weight to increase his speed and extend his career but time holds for no-one.

This year we will see Timmons continue as the Mack and Foote as the Buck.Stevenson is the Buck in waiting as far as on-field skill set. I hope he has the ability to make the calls, it takes a smart player to be the field general of such a complex defense and I'm so sure Timmons has it which is why he stays at the Mack.

This would place Spence, with his athletic speedy coverage ability and Proclaimed High Football smarts as the Mack and even Buck LBer in waiting but his size makes him Troys ( SS ) replacement. I've read where Spences playing weight @ The U was actually 217lbs and he's trying to bulk up for a NFL LBer career.

The NE game this past year we saw LeBeau's version of Buddy Ryans "46" defense which may be why we drafted Spense in the 1st place. His skillset fits that version. Call spence a LBer or a SS or a tweener,whatever. It doesn't really matter, all that matters is LeBeau figures it all out and fields another top flight defense.

Cajun-

 

Is the guy not 230lb? That is not small especially at 5'11". I also heard he was hurt at some point which affected his bench at the combine. His quickness and smarts should be an asset. Maybe a passing down linebacker.

 

He is 230 and if you look at the size of our other lbers when they showed up he is right on par. Heck right now he only ways three pounds lessnthen sly. He wont play safety i could see him as what we called a monster which is normally a lber that can roam. Spence will surpass sly sly may be great in specials but from what ive seen something is missing when he is on defense. I dont know if he is thinking to much or what but other then on specials he has yet to impress me personally

 

I like it.

There's a reason the Steelers took Spence over Ta'amu, who they traded up for. Spence has great potential and his flexibility could be very dangerous one day.

 

Lambert was 218-228

 

This is all fine and dandy, but how do the Steelers generate a PASS RUSH.
The single most important facet of the game today.That and TURNOVERS.

 

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Pass rush will be fine once they Dline falls into place. Hampton's drop-off and A. Smith's absence hurt the Dline performance. Also the OLB's being healthy all year will help too.

@Cajun:
You may be right, and I may be beating a dead horse. But It always seemed to me the guy who sacrificed his body flying into guards and fullbacks was Foote in his first stint here. Farrior was the one coming clean in pursuit like a Mac.

The Mac is the playmaker, and should have the stats to back it up... yet Farrior (buc) always led in tackles over Foote and Timmons?? It doesn't seem like Farrior was sacrificing himself for Foote to make the play. Farrior's strength was scraping and shedding off block to make a play.

Farrior may have lined up on the strong side like the Buc, he was always better covering a TE or RB in pass coverage than Foote too, but Steeler might play their LB's a little differently than the traditional roles.

 

A guy like Spence, with his quickness, cover skills, and smarts, may help the pass rush by playing some 3-4 base instead of nickel which puts more big guys at the line of scrimmage. Both d-lineman in the steelers 2-4 nickel have to be more disruptive in the nickel package for that pass rush.

Both Pounceys did not participate in the bench press at the combine or workouts, probably because they were bad at it. Are they bad lineman? Are they weak? NO.

 

We have to remember Farrior was an OLB from virginia who was drafted in 1997 ( i think ) in the 1st rd ( top ten ) . He wasn't drafted that high for no reason. He was/is very smart and athletic with a great combination of size/speed. The Steelers turned him loose on the inside and said be our field general and make the play..... and he did and did it well.

Timmons was drafted almost that high as to replace Farrior and his role some day and has been a colossal dissappointment when compared to farrior. Patrick Willis would have been the perfect pick but SF beat us to him. We could have had Bowman in the 10' draft but chose Sanders instead, probably because we took Worilds in the 2nd.

Here's a thought, Since Coach T has ties and experience in Dungy's/Kiffin's Tampa-2 which takes advantage of a smaller quicker "mike" maybe we'll see Tomlin's/LeBeau version called "The Burgh-4" which is a 3-4 cover-2 featuring a smaller quicker "Buck"...hhmmmm

Cajun-

 

Yeah this defense is going to have to evolve some. When we play Rodgers, Breeze, or Brady the quick passing plays make our OLB's useless on the field. They can't get to the QB quick enough, and the throw is not the OLB's area...so that is 2 players taken out of the play completely.

If the Steelers played their ILB's a little differently so they could react quicker to the pass plays it may help.

 

Useless? That seems a bit harsh... isn't the reason they are going to the quick plays in the middle because the OLBs are coming in so hard? Aren't our OLBs set up to apply pressure rather than defend against the pass anyway? Seems like that's the DBs' job.

Regarding the ILB's... i'm not film junkie nor is my football IQ that high (one of these day's i will stop self-deprecating) but... my understanding the DL defensive strategy is that you use the DL to create opportunities for the ILB *and* safeties to come in on the rush *and* cover the middle of the field (basically mixing it up to confuse the QB). How would you use the ILB's differently? You could have them jam up the guys who are coming across the middle before they get too far off the line but then you are also slowing things down for the QB too since (a) you are giving back some of the jump they would have gotten on the pass rush and (b) diluting the "illusion" DL creates around exactly who is going to rush.

At least that's the way I see it

 

Timmons was drafted almost that high as to replace Farrior and his role some day and has been a colossal dissappointment when compared to farrior. Patrick Willis would have been the perfect pick but SF beat us to him. We could have had Bowman in the 10' draft but chose Sanders instead, probably because we took Worilds in the 2nd.

Cajun-[/quote]


we should have took sean lee instead of worilds , was a no brainer

 

Timmons was drafted almost that high as to replace Farrior and his role some day and has been a colossal dissappointment when compared to farrior. Patrick Willis would have been the perfect pick but SF beat us to him. We could have had Bowman in the 10' draft but chose Sanders instead, probably because we took Worilds in the 2nd.

Cajun-[/quote]


we should have took sean lee instead of worilds , was a no brainer

 

Timmons wasnt drafted to replace Farrior he was Drafted tp replace Porter

 

What he said ! \

 

i think spence will be a package LB this year and if they like the package against the new league style, they keep it and improve on it.
they teach rolle the same package, but keep him on the PS incase or as the 4th or 5th safety/linebacker/rover/ whatever you want to call the position incase spence gets hurt.
this way they won't have to completely scrap the package if they like it. rolle is built like and fits in the mold of this type of player. they just may put a couple of lbs. on him as the backup to this new package.
all this allows troy to do different things in coverage. he is our pick maker. it keeps him off the line and from getting hurt. with him aging and the injuries mounting, they want to get effective use out of him while they can. this new position(if you want to call it that) will extend troy usefulness for a few years. i just think it's called a steeler LB spot and it will continue to set the pace for the league as always.
but as we know, none of this will work without pressure up front. i think we have that too. i think keisel,heyward and Moo will bring plenty.

 

really SBD? he's an inch and a half shorter then timmons. thats about one and a half knuckles on your pointer finger as an average. will that really mean alot when he's running at a guy to make a tackle? if you look at some of the weights of our LB's, you will find out it's not all that much of a difference.
spence is 231
sly is 231
timmons is listed at 234
foote is listed at 239, but i'll bet you he's been playing at least 10 lbs. lighter then that the last couple of years. more like 225.
farrior last year was 230 or under.

i just don't get all the so small talk. he's just a couple of inches shorter then most. a couple of inches. not a big deal on the football field at full speed. ............................ << about this much. i think he's plenty big enough to handle himself.

 

Have you seen Tom Brady vs. the Steelers defense??? PAT's game plan is to get rid of the ball before the OLB's even have a chance to even get near him. Brady hits Welker right behind the area where the OLB's vacate. Steelers are better off just playing Nickel the entire time.

As for ILB, I'm not really sure how the Steelers would change it up, but I think the idea behind tampa two (even though that is 4-3) is for the the ILB to stay back and to quickly react to every thing infront of them. That would allow a quick LB like Spence to blow up Welker and make them think twice about dinking and dunking all over the field.

 

Come on now, you know better than that. We let Porter go after the 06' season because we couldn't keep James on the Bench and Porter wanted a fat new contract and they thought he was on the downside of his career. Timmons was drafted in 07',rarely saw the field and wasn't a regular starter until his 3rd season.

Cajun-