Interesting Article on Josh Norman Over At Football Outsider*

[CRA]

1 minute ago, Nick_81 said:

Washington plays more man than zone as well, correct?

well, there base is coverage is Cover 3.  Late in the season they went to more man looks than they did early on but were still a zone D. 

[CatMan72]

Right after the Norman signing the Redskins tweeted a picture of Norman lined up against OBJ... makes you wonder if they have any idea OBJ "eviscerated" Norman? LOL 

[stirs]

5 hours ago, PanthersBigD said:

I would love for Josh to have continued success. However I find it hard to believe he'll play well enough/long enough in Washington to justify 50MM guaranteed. 

Turns out to be only about 35 million guaranteed, but still...

[CatMan72]

Skins use cover 1 quite a bit... this will be interesting. 

[CLG]

Liked Norman..  wish him the best. He wanted to be a panther and it didn't happen.. I don't see the point in harping on his performance. I'd like to see him succeed.. if he doesn't... oh well hope he rebounds. 

[The Huddler]

i think he will do great. i always felt that josh was limited by our scheme as far as being able to shut a guy down the whole game. all you had to do what send the reciever out of his zone or move him in the slot. 

 

i think its silly to undermine a great player for us. he was phenominal

[Jon Snow]

I don't think anyone here would say he wasn't good, he's just not 15M a year good.  No DB is worth that in the grand scheme of things as far as the Panthers are concerned and that's really all that matters.  

[panthers55]

7 hours ago, Peppers90 NC said:

He uses his hands well at the LOS, re routing the WR meaning he only has to keep up for a couple seconds. Straight line speed is the most overrated attribute by casual fans.

Actually I think one of Norman's weakness is his inability to jam receivers at the line. He tried with OBJ but it just wasn't his game. Josh is a smart player and is perfect with zone because he cn recover so quickly and loves to be facing the quarterback.  He doesn't have flat speed but relies on his athleticism and timing to make plays. You could argue that poor technique or lack of speed put you into a situation where you had to make some kind of athletic play to bail yourself out. But still he was largely successful and important to our team.

The issue was if he routed players to the inside he didn't follow them. His zone was either halves, thirds or quarters without help on the deep routes many times. So only the guys going outside or guys coming from the slot to the outside were his responsibility.  Safeties and linebackers had the crossing routes unless Josh played off his man and read the quarterbacks eyes.

I am looking forward to see if he keeps developing and improving or struggles to live up to a monster contract. He has the media's attention in Washington he never would have here.

[d-dave]

I'm not sure there are many real fans of the team who hope Norman fails.  The article simply points out the holes in Norman's game that he hasn't been able to close up (or simply hasn't needed to).  In our zone game, Norman was the man.  But if he's asked to be a bump and run, man up guy, that doesn't really play to his strengths.

Norman is a really good player, he was great for us.  It's fair to say that Washington is going to have to use him properly to get value out of their investment.  If they line him up 1 on 1 all game, Norman is going to have a long game because he was never asked to do that for us.

I hope he does well, I really do.