NU defensive units: better or worse this year?

[NUance]

Which parts of our defense will be better this coming season than last? Which parts worse?

DTs, better or worse?

DEs?

Safeties?

CBs?

Will/Mike LBs?

Nickel?

 

[knapplc]

Fonzie is going to be a lock-down corner. We'll put Evans at the other corner, and if he plays remotely like the glimpses of brilliance he showed last year, we'll be fine in the secondary. Dijon Washington and Lazari Middleton were hyped up quite a bit, and should (hopefully) provide depth. At the two safeties we'll have a choice of Cassidy, PJ Smith and Courtney Osborne, all of whom have inspired confidence at one time or another. Andrew Green is in the secondary mix somewhere, as is Antonio Bell, and both appear to be coachable athletes. We'll have a secondary as good as anyone in the Big 10, if not better.

Our D Line is going to be solid. Crick should be a bulwark, and I presume that Steinkuhler hasn't peaked and will improve. Subbing Rome, Randle and Moore in shouldn't be much of a dropoff, so we have good depth at DT. Meredith should have a fine season and shouldn't drop off at all, and if he improves on 2010 he'll be a force. I don't presume to know who's going to get the starting nod at the other DE spot, but if Ankrah turns out to be anything like the hype, he'll be just fine on the other end. If it's Eric Martin, hopefully he's found a way to channel that aggression into smart play. If so, our DEs should be terrifying, and either EMart or Ankrah will provide quality depth. I am not concerned about our D Line at all.

Where I'm really concerned is at LB. Fisher and Compton have yet to live up to the gaudy hype they received when they were recruits. Neither have been terrible, and of course the jury's still way out on Fisher since he lost a year. Here's hoping both improve and provide solid run-stuffing hits. Compton should be ahead of Fisher due to game experience, but Fisher is supposed to be quite good. The one guy we're not concerned with is LaVonte David, who should bulk up a bit yet still remain a major force behind the line. I'm very happy to have him back this year. If guys like Whaley and Matt May can provide good minutes behind an improved Fisher and Compton, we'll be OK.

Overall I'm happy with where our defense is right now. We lose guys, but we have solid depth behind them. We should be a stingy defense once again in 2011.

I just hope our offense can figure out what's going on at some point so we can make some waves. If not, it's going to be another depressing year of stupid losses.

 

[kchusker_chris]

DTs - better. Barring injury nothing has changed except added experience/depth

DEs - better. Sorry Mr. Allen, but I feel Meredith with another year of experience will excede 2010 Allen, and the newcomer should match Merediths production. Containing mobile QBs was an issue for us, hopefully that is addressed.

Safeties - worse (how could we possibly be better, or as good as 2010?)

CBs - push

LBs - better. depth/experience, etc

Nickel - worse...but won't be relied on to the extent it was last year.

 

[NUance]

Here's what I got.

DTs? Better. We’ll have a deeper rotation. We keep Crick and Moore, and bring in Chase Rome and Jay Guy into the rotation.

DEs? Better, slightly (or the same). We keep Cam but lose Pierre. Cam was hurt part of last year, but was still a beast. He will improve. Losing Pierre Allen is going to hurt. Ankrah, Josh Williams or Eric Martin might be better eventually. But not right away.

Safeties? Worse. We lose Gomes. He’ll be hard to replace. Hard to say who will be on the field next year. Osborn and P.J. Smith I guess.

CBs? Worse—but only slightly. Dennard is GREAT. And Ciante will be too, eventually. But you can’t lose a guy like Prince Amakamara and get better. Bell and Washington are both top notch. Would likely be starting on a lot of teams.

Will/Mike LBs? Better. Lavonte is back, and with a year’s PT this time. Fisher and Compton coming back *should * help out.

Nickel? Worse. It’s hard to say whether Cassidy will be better than Hagg. Not knowing, we’ll just have to wait and see.

 

[knapplc]

I think losing Allen is going to hurt far less than people think. He had a difficult time getting separation from blocks and he lost containment far too often.

 

[NUance]

I think losing Allen is going to hurt far less than people think. He had a difficult time getting separation from blocks and he lost containment far too often.

Surprisingly, Allen's tackle stats were nearly the same for the season as Meredith. Granted, I think Cam was hurting for a couple of games in the middle there. Cam is more powerful, and maybe quicker too, when healthy. The thing I liked about Pierre was his HUGE wingspan. He’d be tied up with an O-lineman, and reach out several feet to grab the ball carrier. We're gonna miss him.

 

[NUance]

A guy we’re going miss more than people realize is Gomes. He was a ballhawking missile, ranging from sideline to sideline. And the guy could lay the wood. Not like Thenarse, but enough to make WRs keep an eye out when they came over the top.

Did you know Gomes had 99 tackles this year? That's a pretty amazing stat.

 

[Stumpy1]

DTs - better. Barring injury nothing has changed except added experience/depth

DEs - better. Sorry Mr. Allen, but I feel Meredith with another year of experience will excede 2010 Allen, and the newcomer should match Merediths production. Containing mobile QBs was an issue for us, hopefully that is addressed.

Safeties - worse (how could we possibly be better, or as good as 2010?)

CBs - push

LBs - better. depth/experience, etc

Nickel - worse...but won't be relied on to the extent it was last year.

I think safeties will be better. We will have atleast 3 of them that have starting experience.

 

[Hujan]

Here's what I got.

DTs? Better. We’ll have a deeper rotation. We keep Crick and Moore, and bring in Chase Rome and Jay Guy into the rotation.

DEs? Better, slightly (or the same). We keep Cam but lose Pierre. Cam was hurt part of last year, but was still a beast. He will improve. Losing Pierre Allen is going to hurt. Ankrah, Josh Williams or Eric Martin might be better eventually. But not right away.

Safeties? Worse. We lose Gomes. He’ll be hard to replace. Hard to say who will be on the field next year. Osborn and P.J. Smith I guess.

CBs? Worse—but only slightly. Dennard is GREAT. And Ciante will be too, eventually. But you can’t lose a guy like Prince Amakamara and get better. Bell and Washington are both top notch. Would likely be starting on a lot of teams.

Will/Mike LBs? Better. Lavonte is back, and with a year’s PT this time. Fisher and Compton coming back *should * help out.

Nickel? Worse. It’s hard to say whether Cassidy will be better than Hagg. Not knowing, we’ll just have to wait and see.

:yeah

Biggest losses IMO in order are:

1. Hagg
   
2. Gomes
   
3. Amukamara
   

Last year, the secondary was our strength and the DL and LBs were our liabilities. This year, the secondary will be a bit of a liability/untested at the nickel, safety, and one corner spot, but the DL and LBs will be our strength.

Ultimately, I expect our defense to generally meet---or, depending on how the new kids on the block in the secondary shake out, exceed---last year's defensive production.

 

[NUance]

Biggest losses IMO in order are:

1. Hagg
   
2. Gomes
   
3. Amukamara
   

Yeah, we’re going to miss Hagg and Gomes more than Prince. For sure. A lot of people would peg Prince as our biggest loss because he got the most headlines. But there’s going to be a bigger drop off trying replace the other two.

 

[knapplc]

Amukamara is a huge loss. The fact that nobody threw his way for 7/8ths of the season is pretty clear proof of that. We'll need Evans to become Dennard to Dennard's Amukamara this year.

Gomes and Hagg will also be sorely missed, don't get me wrong, but when you can take away half the defensive backfield with one player, that's a pretty important piece to lose.

Of the three, I'm going to miss Gomes the most. The guy was such a pleasure to watch, and he had great ball instincts. I have a hard time believing he's not getting more draft hype. If he falls to the 6th/7th round, someone's getting a steal.

 

[kyle sibert]

Didn't Gomes play more of a linebacker position than a safety? I know he's smaller and faster, but he was always in the box playing some kind of Will backer. Because of that, I see our safeties getting better.

Nickel will be worse, but I'm just interested to see who will play it. Cassidy? Smith? Green? If it's Cassidy, does Smith start safety again? With the size of the Big 10, I'd want to see Cassidy play it, but I don't how well he can cover a receiver in man.

Honestly, I think we'll be worse at linebacker. If we had stayed in the Big 12, I think we would have gotten better, but in the Big 10, some of those running backs are bigger than our backers. Compton is going to have to have a BIG year, or else we're going to be hurting. David won't be able to have the success he had this year unless Compton shows that he can handle the oline and stop the backs. If we want a top 10 overall D, I think it relies on what Compton does.

I can't say about cornerback. I wanna see how Evans does every game before I make a judgement. They'll be picking on him a lot as Fonzie will have one side locked down.

Dline overall is going to be better. I see Crick having a statistical season similar to Suh's, but he won't be as game-changing. In order for that to happen, Steinkuhler is going to have to be able to destroy the guy in front of him, forcing double teams so Crick can work his magic.

Overall, I think our D is going to be fantastic.

 

[NUance]

Amukamara is a huge loss. The fact that nobody threw his way for 7/8ths of the season is pretty clear proof of that. We'll need Evans to become Dennard to Dennard's Amukamara this year.

Gomes and Hagg will also be sorely missed, don't get me wrong, but when you can take away half the defensive backfield with one player, that's a pretty important piece to lose.

Of the three, I'm going to miss Gomes the most. The guy was such a pleasure to watch, and he had great ball instincts. I have a hard time believing he's not getting more draft hype. If he falls to the 6th/7th round, someone's getting a steal.

Yeah, Prince is a GREAT player. One of the best CBs we’ve had in years. Maybe ever. It’s just that we won’t have a problem replacing him. We got lots of talent at CB. Dennard might even end up being as good as Prince. Supposedly Dennard is faster. And we got two or three guys coming up who are gonna be real good. Ciante Evans, Dejon Washington and Antonio Bell all look like money to me.

 

[billdozer15]

Here's what I got.

DTs? Better. We’ll have a deeper rotation. We keep Crick and Moore, and bring in Chase Rome and Jay Guy into the rotation.

DEs? Better, slightly (or the same). We keep Cam but lose Pierre. Cam was hurt part of last year, but was still a beast. He will improve. Losing Pierre Allen is going to hurt. Ankrah, Josh Williams or Eric Martin might be better eventually. But not right away.

Safeties? Worse. We lose Gomes. He’ll be hard to replace. Hard to say who will be on the field next year. Osborn and P.J. Smith I guess.

CBs? Worse—but only slightly. Dennard is GREAT. And Ciante will be too, eventually. But you can’t lose a guy like Prince Amakamara and get better. Bell and Washington are both top notch. Would likely be starting on a lot of teams.

Will/Mike LBs? Better. Lavonte is back, and with a year’s PT this time. Fisher and Compton coming back *should * help out.

Nickel? Worse. It’s hard to say whether Cassidy will be better than Hagg. Not knowing, we’ll just have to wait and see.

Agreed. But as for the safties i think we will be ok. Osborne is going to be really good. The guy has size, speed and a nose for the football. I am also excited to see Corey Cooper getting some snaps. We are going to be ok in the secondary for years to come.

 

[n.e.husker]

Didn't Gomes play more of a linebacker position than a safety? I know he's smaller and faster, but he was always in the box playing some kind of Will backer. Because of that, I see our safeties getting better.

He was brought into the box due the amount of dime we ran this year. Our lack of depth/experience at LB forced us to play small. Whahley and martin(moved to DE) were two liabilities at LB.