Official Senior Bowl Thread

[jppaul]

Originally Posted by barrett

Well honestly no LB is covering Gates or the top TEs in man coverage, or at least not well. Those guys are covered by safeties on almost every pass route.

But either way my point is that (1) guys who can cover Antonio Gates 1 on 1 are not playing SLB and (2) NFL teams don't ask their SLB to man up on a TE like gates so its irrelevant. In a 4-3 about %90 of the SLB's job is to fill the hole and tackle in the run game. And they all exit the game in passing situations, and most play less than the nickel corner. They are part time players. It is not a speed position or one that requires huge talent. For the most part it is veteran guys who don't get paid much. Bentley played the role for us very well.

Barrett, I understand your point, I just disagree with you. A SLB who can cover Gates and does cover Gates allows the safety to stay deep, which is an asset because the CHargers run Gates in the seams and the intermediate middle to get the remaining safety to bite so that they can go over the top to Jackson. Having a SLB who can cover him would not be a waste of resources. Sometimes the Broncos use arguably the top corner in the game to cover Gates, that is not a waste of resources, and the question becomes relevant.