Five most critical players this yr

[InsideLB]

How I answer depends on how "most critical" is defined:

If defined by guys we can least afford to lose:
J. Thomas
Gamble
PJ Davis
AJ Gray
Any starting OL due to lack of bodies

If defined by guys who if they make a jump all other things equal we'll be cooking with grease:
Kallon
Devine
AJ Gray
One dominant pass rushing DE (K. Free, Simmons, Anree, etc.)
Consistent playmaking wide receiver (Jeune, Stewart, rs or tr FR, or Messick makes a Darren Waller jump(not likely).

AB & BB I think we can win and pile up yards with an impressive stable of backs & Justin.

 

[Frenchise]

first no they are not. Dj white and milton were as athletic as they come. Just look at their performance numbers. Neither austin breaks 4.50; and i have no clue why people keep saying these guys are more athletic just isnt true imo. I have watched alot of their play in tape and in person. I have my concerns

Second i see the style of cb we have today in this so called athleticism and it doesn't fit what roof typically tries to do. And i am still not convinced roof knows how to adapt. Some coaches just run their system despite the talent. Which is fine if u have the horses. Not sure we do

Finally, and most pointed is simply afte these concerns it was all validated in spring when the head man said himself cb was where he is most concerned. And i know for a fact the fit of them is part of it. We have alot of boundary types. Not alot of field man types. Roof loves man rolls and dropping the S in isolation.

We will see. But this is what my eyes say

Simply a better pass and milton and white look all world. A better pash rush this year can help mask things too. And if the S holds cvg it will help. Ted will need to play more 3deep than ever before imo to mask. We will see.

Do you remember what DJ ran at the combine? 4.49. I doubt the austins are far off that.

 

[33jacket]

Steph Durham, Lamont Simmons, and Dorian walker are all just as athletic imo I'm not saying they are as good because I don't know, I have not seen them play but Durham, but from what they were in high school they are definitely just as athletic and fit in what Ted roof wants to do. Now it's just a matter of will they go out and do their job, but to say they arent as athletic is crazy imo.

Never once said they werent. Said they are not more athletic

 

[33jacket]

Do you remember what DJ ran at the combine? 4.49. I doubt the austins are far off that.

Milton dropped a 4.3. A 449 and 43 is better than two 45 or 455

And did u see the other explosive numbers?

Bottom line. There is no way imo they are MORE athletic at best equal imo

 

[Techster]

Milton dropped a 4.3. A 449 and 43 is better than two 45 or 455

And did u see the other explosive numbers?

Bottom line. There is no way imo they are MORE athletic at best equal imo

Nothing against Milton, and he made some really great plays for us, but he was an athlete playing CB and not a true CB. Teams picked on him a lot. He obviously had some athletic gifts that covered for lack of natural CB ability. I can't remember how many times we saw the back of his jersey trailing guys or just plain lost in space. His loss will not be missed as much as DJ White's presence in the backfield. White is probably one of the better DBs to play for us under CPJ.

I'm with you though. I think Lamont Simmons, Dorian Gray, Step Durham, Ajani Kerr (t-Fr) all "look" the part, but they are all unproven. All are just at 6' or taller and long. That doesn't mean squat until they actually play on this level. Step is the only one that's played on this level extensively, and I thought he looked REALLY good against FSU last year in his only start. At worst, Step is an improvement over Chris Milton, IMO. It will be a lot harder replacing DJ White.

AJ Gray will probably go down as one of the best safties to play for CPJ. Ability-wise, he's probably not as an elite of a talent as Morgan Burnett who was probably the 2nd best safety to play in college at the time behind Eric Berry, but he's 2-3 steps above anyone we've had since.

That still leaves several holes to fill in the defensive backfield. With an unproven pass rush, that could spell a lot of trouble if our young guys have to chase receivers all day with no pressure upfront.

 

[jeffgt14]

Simply a better pass rush and milton and white look all world.

^^This

 

[jeffgt14]

Nothing against Milton, and he made some really great plays for us, but he was an athlete playing CB and not a true CB. Teams picked on him a lot. He obviously had some athletic gifts that covered for lack of natural CB ability. I can't remember how many times we saw the back of his jersey trailing guys or just plain lost in space. His loss will not be missed as much as DJ White's presence in the backfield. White is probably one of the better DBs to play for us under CPJ.

I'm with you though. I think Lamont Simmons, Dorian Gray, Step Durham, Ajani Kerr (t-Fr) all "look" the part, but they are all unproven. All are just at 6' and long. That doesn't mean squat until they actually play on this level. Step is the only one that's played on this level extensively, and I thought he looked REALLY good against FSU last year in his only start. At worst, Step is an improvement over Chris Milton, IMO. It will be a lot harder replacing DJ White.

AJ Gray will probably go down as one of the best safties to play for CPJ. Ability-wise, he's probably not as an elite of a talent as Morgan Burnett who was probably the 2nd best safety to play in college at the time behind Eric Berry, but he's 2-3 steps above anyone we've had since.

That still leaves several holes to fill in the defensive backfield. With an unproven pass rush, that could spell a lot of trouble if our young guys have to chase receivers all day with no pressure upfront.

Disagree completely about Milton. He wasn’t the greatest deep but he was a lock on the short game.

 

[Frenchise]

Disagree completely about Milton. He wasn’t the greatest deep but he was a lock on the short game.

Which is funny because that should be DJ's strong suit and Milton's weakness. Milton was a speedster, DJ was a beast. If you run a 4.3 and can't cover the deep threat, it shows that your technique isn't there.

 

[Frenchise]

Milton dropped a 4.3. A 449 and 43 is better than two 45 or 455

And did u see the other explosive numbers?

Bottom line. There is no way imo they are MORE athletic at best equal imo

That's fine. My point was simply that one of our CBs was a 4.5 guy.

 

[jeffgt14]

Which is funny because that should be DJ's strong suit and Milton's weakness. Milton was a speedster, DJ was a beast. If you run a 4.3 and can't cover the deep threat, it shows that your technique isn't there.

Milton didn’t get burned deep he just couldn’t find the ball sometimes and that caused him to lose some of the 50/50 balls. You guys make it sound like this happened on a regular occurrence. It didn’t. Milton bailed us out way more than he gave up big plays and like 33jacket said, if we even remotely had a better pass rush sometimes, those numbers would look even better.

 

[Eastman]

Nothing against Milton, and he made some really great plays for us, but he was an athlete playing CB and not a true CB. Teams picked on him a lot. He obviously had some athletic gifts that covered for lack of natural CB ability. I can't remember how many times we saw the back of his jersey trailing guys or just plain lost in space. His loss will not be missed as much as DJ White's presence in the backfield. White is probably one of the better DBs to play for us under CPJ.

I'm with you though. I think Lamont Simmons, Dorian Gray, Step Durham, Ajani Kerr (t-Fr) all "look" the part, but they are all unproven. All are just at 6' or taller and long. That doesn't mean squat until they actually play on this level. Step is the only one that's played on this level extensively, and I thought he looked REALLY good against FSU last year in his only start. At worst, Step is an improvement over Chris Milton, IMO. It will be a lot harder replacing DJ White.

AJ Gray will probably go down as one of the best safties to play for CPJ. Ability-wise, he's probably not as an elite of a talent as Morgan Burnett who was probably the 2nd best safety to play in college at the time behind Eric Berry, but he's 2-3 steps above anyone we've had since.

That still leaves several holes to fill in the defensive backfield. With an unproven pass rush, that could spell a lot of trouble if our young guys have to chase receivers all day with no pressure upfront.

"Dorian Gray" LOL. I do hope that A.J. Gray and Dorian Walker become a nightmare for opposing teams.

 

[Techster]

Disagree completely about Milton. He wasn’t the greatest deep but he was a lock on the short game.

I'll disagree with the short stuff. Milton made plays, but his positioning and situational awareness was pretty bad. I can't count how many times he gave a guy a 5-10 yard cushion on 3rd and short, or played outside leverage when there was no one playing underneath and let guys run through the middle. Maybe some of it was bad coaching, but DJ White didn't suffer a lot of those issues that Milton did. Don't get me startedon the deep passes...

 

[dressedcheeseside]

I look at this question as more of "5 most critical positions" rather than players. It doesn't matter who fills the spots, if these spots don't work, we're in deep doo doo. Here's my 5:

1. qb
2. center
3. RG
4. wr
5. DL: anybody, somebody, who can pressure the passer, it doesn't matter if it's a DE or DT.

 

[Techster]

Milton didn’t get burned deep he just couldn’t find the ball sometimes and that caused him to lose some of the 50/50 balls.

Kind of a big issue if you're playing DB...

 

[jeffgt14]

I'll disagree with the short stuff. Milton made plays, but his positioning and situational awareness was pretty bad. I can't count how many times he gave a guy a 5-10 yard cushion on 3rd and short, or played outside leverage when there was no one playing underneath and let guys run through the middle. Maybe some of it was bad coaching, but DJ White didn't suffer a lot of those issues that Milton did. Don't get me startedon the deep passes...

That's just Roof's scheme. You'll see it this year too unless Roof decides to change it up.

Kind of a big issue if you're playing DB...

You clearly didn't read the rest of this post.

 

[jeffgt14]

There’s really no use arguing this. We’ll see how it plays out on the field. Maybe our pass rush will be dominate or maybe Lance Austin is a beast. I’m not knocking Lance, I haven’t seen him play enough yet. I’m just saying I’m worried because I know how valuable Milton was to us whether you want to believe it or not.

 

[Techster]

That's just Roof's scheme. You'll see it this year too unless Roof decides to change it up.

You clearly didn't read the rest of this post.

I did. But it's not like I'm the only one who saw Milton getting picked on deep...A LOT. There's a reason for that.

I don't want to keep beating on Milton's negatives, because he was a decent to good player who made some really good plays, but you're making it sound like we're going to miss a really good talent. We're not. DJ White was good to very good, and clearly our best CB...and he was drafted in the 6th round. Milton was an undrafted FA. Milton is replaceable in the defensive backfield. Where we'll miss Milton is on special teams. He was a special teams ace...but that's not the defensive backfield.

Milton was just an athletic freak who we needed to play at CB. IMO, he would have been a stud slot WR.

 

[GaTech4ever]

I can't count how many times he gave a guy a 5-10 yard cushion on 3rd and short

I can't speak to anything else, but I know this specifically was at the direction of his coaches. Really frustrating to him (and obviously anyone watching).

 

[Techster]

I can't speak to anything else, but I know this specifically was at the direction of his coaches. Really frustrating to him (and obviously anyone watching).

I've got no doubt coaching has something to do with the positioning. We'll see how our guys play this year. Definitely lots of frustration in how our guys are coached. Lots of it is fundamental even on the HS level that our guys are not doing.

 

[tech_wreck47]

Never once said they werent. Said they are not more athletic

You might want to go back and read your first statement. I said the guys we have are just as athletic if not more, and you said no they are not.