Cushing weighs 262!

[painekiller]

My reason for posting this was is Cushing going to be able to cover the pass? Is he going to be a 2 down player? He already is not the best cover LB, will the slower speed due to the higher than average playing weight hurt him. IIRC he did not blow me away with his forty time at the lighter weight. Did our team get dooped by a work out?

And yes I was not in favor of our drafting of Cushing at the time of draft.

[Nconroe]

I guess we'll see, according to a some analysts he might be good at pass coverage, three down LB

http://warroom.sportingnews.com/nfl/...yers/8442.html
Run/pass recognition: Is naturally instinctive. Is not fooled by play-action or misdirection plays. Does not make mental mistakes. Does a good job carrying out his responsibilities and assignments. Grade: 8.5

http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/draft/players/559359
Pass Defense: As a former defensive back, Cushing gets back in coverage better than most linebackers. He has good vision locating the ball and does a nice job of anticipating the quarterback. He does not get great depth to cover in the deep third of the zone, but in the short area he has the containment skills to make plays in front of him. He does look a little tight in his movement coming out of his backpedal, but does a good job when asked to just cover the tight end or running back. He does a good job of shadowing underneath, but with that slight hips stiffness he might not be as effective in deep man coverage. GRADE: 6.8

He played at 259 at USC and there is some good film on him, so I think I'm ok with the pick. we gotta see in real games though. so far Smith-Kubiak done good at draft, so guess I'll trust it for ow.

[nunusguy]

Originally Posted by painekiller

My reason for posting this was is Cushing going to be able to cover the pass? Is he going to be a 2 down player? He already is not the best cover LB, will the slower speed due to the higher than average playing weight hurt him. IIRC he did not blow me away with his forty time at the lighter weight. Did our team get dooped by a work out?

And yes I was not in favor of our drafting of Cushing at the time of draft.

Me neither. I think McClin would have been a better value at 15 and I would have favored taking him even though WR was already a stronger position for the Texans than LB. But I preferred Cushing over either of the other 2 USC backers. Still, I think we could have gotten a solid 2-down SAM in later rounds and not be left in the postion to be concerned about "making" Cushing a 3-down LB since we used such a high pick for him.
But he's now our first-round pick, out top pick in the '09 Draft so I'm gonna try to keep a positive attitude about him.

[barrett]

Originally Posted by painekiller

My reason for posting this was is Cushing going to be able to cover the pass? Is he going to be a 2 down player? He already is not the best cover LB, will the slower speed due to the higher than average playing weight hurt him. IIRC he did not blow me away with his forty time at the lighter weight. Did our team get dooped by a work out?

And yes I was not in favor of our drafting of Cushing at the time of draft.

Did anyone ever think he was going to be on the field in pass coverage on 3rd down? No SLBs play coverage on 3rd down. I said all along that 4-3 SLB is not a big impact position.

The only way he was ever going to be a 3 down player is if he could drop down to DE on passing downs and being 262 definitely doesn't hurt that.

[idymoe]

Originally Posted by painekiller

My reason for posting this was is Cushing going to be able to cover the pass? Is he going to be a 2 down player? He already is not the best cover LB, will the slower speed due to the higher than average playing weight hurt him. IIRC he did not blow me away with his forty time at the lighter weight. Did our team get dooped by a work out?

And yes I was not in favor of our drafting of Cushing at the time of draft.

This seems like a timely comment from the official team site under "Quotes from OTA's Day 9".


Head coach Gary Kubiak

(on who besides LB DeMeco Ryans he’ll put in on third down situations) “Well, obviously (LB Brian) Cushing has the ability to do that. All we did with him, initially he’s worked with the first group in base and we start him with the second group at nickel just to kind of not throw too much at him too quick, but he’s caught up. No doubt in my mind (LBs) Zac (Diles), Xavier (Adibi) can do it, Kevin (Bentley) can do it. In that situation, on third downs, you want your two best athletes out there being able to cover and possibly do some rushing of the passer, so we’ll see what happens. Right now, we’ll be working with DeMeco and Cushing, and Zac and X (Adibi) are doing it.”

[Arky]

Cushing/Linebacker video from HT.com:

http://www.houstontexans.com/tv/inde...03&play_clip=Y

[superbowlbound]

I know I'm jumping in real late on the steroid thing, and it's a pretty annoying topic to begin with, but I personally couldn't care less whether you did them or not, as long as you're not caught. Commedian Daniel Tosh said it best: "I think steroids should be mandatory. As fans, I think we deserve the finest athletes science can create. So what if your body breaks down and you die at fifty? You hate life after football anyway. I'm doing you a favor."

Back on topic. I think Cushing's going to be fantastic. I've not seen anything from OTA's to make me think anything less. As others have said, he played at 259 at USC and was nothing if not productive. Granted, SLB is not the biggest impact position on the field, but he's definitely an upgrade over Greenwood. That's not even debatable, IMO. While we definitely have some question marks there, it looks like we have a solid if not really good front 7. Our young corners have a lot of potential, and we're 1 really good safety away from a really terrifying defense, provided we allow our D-line to play to their strengths, IE penetrate. A big, sure-tackling SLB definitely should open things up for Bush to be more aggresive with the front 4, especially with demeco already there. We've got 3 pretty impressive athletes competing for WLB, so we've definitely got some depth. This is probably the best linebacking corps we've ever had, to go along with the best D-line we've ever had (assuming we can get some maturation from Amobi, and Connor can do what we ask of him. We know what we're going to get out of Mario.)

[papabear]

One thing that gets overlooked in our never ending obsession with getting to the QB, is how absolutely atrocious we were at stopping the run last year. I'm not saying that rushing the passer isn't a critical area that this team needs to improve, but if your consistently getting gutted on the ground like we were last year than your not going to get many opportunities in third and long to really let dogs loose up front. That's one reason I was OK with going for a SLB in the first round. Most of the time that's not a position I would want to use a 1st round pick on. If Cush can help improve our run defense than I'm fine with him being a two down LB. I would have hoped that a 1st round LB might be able to drop down as a rush end on third down, but Barwin should be the one filling that role.

No matter how pass happy this league, and this division, gets you will always have to be able to stop the run...and we were terrible at it last year.

[kravix]

Originally Posted by papabear

One thing that gets overlooked in our never ending obsession with getting to the QB, is how absolutely atrocious we were at stopping the run last year. I'm not saying that rushing the passer isn't a critical area that this team needs to improve, but if your consistently getting gutted on the ground like we were last year than your not going to get many opportunities in third and long to really let dogs loose up front. That's one reason I was OK with going for a SLB in the first round. Most of the time that's not a position I would want to use a 1st round pick on. If Cush can help improve our run defense than I'm fine with him being a two down LB. I would have hoped that a 1st round LB might be able to drop down as a rush end on third down, but Barwin should be the one filling that role.

No matter how pass happy this league, and this division, gets you will always have to be able to stop the run...and we were terrible at it last year.

Well said. I couldnt agree more.

[painekiller]

Originally Posted by papabear

One thing that gets overlooked in our never ending obsession with getting to the QB, is how absolutely atrocious we were at stopping the run last year.

To add to your point, we play the Titans and the Jags 4 games, 2 more than Indy, and the last time I looked they where both running teams.

I think we drafted Cushing for one reason only, stop the run. IIRC papabear has been telling us the key is not the pass rush but the 3rd and longs created by stopping the run.

Since we now have a LB corp that is not considered small, I think the development of Okoye and Okam can have the biggest impact on this team, I think the development of Okoye and Okam will have the biggest impact on this team. If they can get into the top half of the league against the run and still be solid against pass.

[papabear]

Originally Posted by painekiller

... IIRC papabear has been telling us the key is not the pass rush but the 3rd and longs created by stopping the run.

Maybe not quite that strongly, but your going to get more good opportunities if you can consistently stop the run and set up third and long situations. There were some pretty damn good Colt teams that we're derailed because they couldn't stop the run despite having great pass rushers

Our offense is pretty potent, and teams with a strong running game are going to try to run the ball to keep AJ and friends off the field.

[NBT]

Part of our run defense problem, at least last year, was Richard Smith's defenses. I think just changing schemes will help tremendously.

[jppaul]

Originally Posted by superbowlbound

Back on topic. I think Cushing's going to be fantastic. I've not seen anything from OTA's to make me think anything less. As others have said, he played at 259 at USC and was nothing if not productive. Granted, SLB is not the biggest impact position on the field, but he's definitely an upgrade over Greenwood. That's not even debatable, IMO. While we definitely have some question marks there, it looks like we have a solid if not really good front 7. Our young corners have a lot of potential, and we're 1 really good safety away from a really terrifying defense, provided we allow our D-line to play to their strengths, IE penetrate. A big, sure-tackling SLB definitely should open things up for Bush to be more aggresive with the front 4, especially with demeco already there. We've got 3 pretty impressive athletes competing for WLB, so we've definitely got some depth. This is probably the best linebacking corps we've ever had, to go along with the best D-line we've ever had (assuming we can get some maturation from Amobi, and Connor can do what we ask of him. We know what we're going to get out of Mario.)

Yeah, I agree that a SLB is not the biggest apparent impact position, but it becomes immediately apparent that it is impact when teams are running for big gains, and your SLB is getting washed.

[painekiller]

Seems that some of my concern about Cushing in coverage was answered today. The knocked a couple of balls and had an INT. Not to bad for an "overweight to slow" kid.

" " things I have accussed Cushing of being.

see chron.com video for more info.