You know who Luke reminds me of these days?

[Wolfpack352]

First let me just say that Luke is a special breed, a one of a kind and awesome player, smart!  

Now....there is someone that reminds me of Luke and I believe has potential.  A cousin of mine has a boy named Keegan Stinespring who plays linebacker and has college scouts looking at him.  The kid is balling hard and is one of the fastest players on the high school team.  He runs all over the field left to right and right to left hitting hard making the tackles.  Plays in Bentonville, Arkansas.  You can actually type in his name in youtube and find highlight vids of him.  He is good and does remind me of Luke the way he plays.  Not saying he is Luke 2.0 but he sure looks like he has potential.  I hope he makes it and will be watching him closely whatever college he decides to play for.  

[bababoey]

The best thing to run with our personel right now might be the defense that Seattle ran back in the days of the legion of boom.  Burns, Irvin, Miller as stand up SLB on running downs and DE on passing downs.  I don't know if we have enough 4-3 DE to really run that but that could work with the guys we have. 

[DeAngelo Beason]

Luke was a shell of his former self last year too.  Let's not blame the 3-4.

[ncfan]

Scheme doesn't matter

3-4, 4-3, 5-2, 3-3-5. 

If your interior DL gets busted through like a revolving door and OL gets to your LBs untouched.

 

Your MLBs aren't going to look good.

 

This is more of a.  Look at Luke's rookie year, when he had Fua, Ron Edwards, and Terrell McClain in front of him.   At this point, id have faith with CMC blocking Vernon Butler 1 on 1

[Matt62881]

4 hours ago, Jeremy Igo said:

Luke reminds me of rookie Luke at WLB. Beason started at MLB for a minute Luke's rookie year. 

I could be completely wrong but I think Luke's problems stem from a complete lack of depth and talent at the NT position and RE/LE positions which in the 34 are about as heavy as 3 tech DTs. Luke lead the league in tackles for the first 5 or so weeks before KK went down. We went into this season underweight across the front tbh.

[NorthTryon]

4 hours ago, WarPanthers89 said:

Look at the play and comments from Ray Lewis when they switched to a 3-4 and had issues at DT, same thing. I hope our next coach puts him in a much better position next year and “just doesn’t screw it up” as Rivera said 

Good stuff!  I remember that too.  After Siragusa and those guys aged out, they were getting gashed before they got Hiloti Ngata and some more size.  If you don't have a colossal space eater in the middle, a 3-4 will never work.

[kungfoodude]

2 hours ago, SetfreexX said:

Poe is a true 3-4 NT

McCoy / Short - are fits at 3-4 DE

We are a little undersized at the OLB positions. 

Factor in we lost Short early, and now our NT anchor in Poe it we were going to see poor run defense, we have yet to see this defense fully complimented, and this is the first year of the switch there were bound to  be some growing pains as the depth isn't there yet. 

The pressure we have been able to generate / the blitz looks were a thing of beauty early on while guys were healthy, Burns looks like Addison's replacement (unless he re-signs a friendly deal)

A swap back to 4-3 makes 0 sense, all of our LBs on the edge are better 3-4 fits, and Luke / Shaq when the DL takes up blocks have looked good, the consistency up front just isn't there. 

Add in the fact that the F-150's chosen one is not good and we can't score on offense, teams wear us down and the run defense gets even worse as the game goes on because we can't score points to make OTHER teams one dimensional like us, and being in more obvious passing situations. 

I agree on the depth issue. Seeing the DL completely fall apart after some of the injuries really exposed how poor our depth is. Same with the OL. It's been an issue for multiple seasons for that matter.

[kungfoodude]

43 minutes ago, Matt62881 said:

I could be completely wrong but I think Luke's problems stem from a complete lack of depth and talent at the NT position and RE/LE positions which in the 34 are about as heavy as 3 tech DTs. Luke lead the league in tackles for the first 5 or so weeks before KK went down. We went into this season underweight across the front tbh.

It isn't just Luke. Shaq was a top 5 tackler before the injuries set in on that DL too. Our depth was exposed and when you run a scheme like we have been, it will immediately impact the defense the way that it has. 

[raleigh-panther]

7 hours ago, Jeremy Igo said:Luke reminds me of rookie Luke at WLB. Beason started at MLB for a minute Luke's rookie year. 

Read an interesting article about Rivera’s weakness’ and how McDermott’s knowledge of x and o’s save Rivera and once McDermott left, well, we know the result 

I’m sure Rivera is a good human being, but you really have to be a questionable coach when you have generational players in Newton and Luke and can’t capitalize 

...and then this year, implemented a scheme that made Luke a non factor

brilliant 

[Mr. Scot]

3 hours ago, Matt62881 said:

I could be completely wrong but I think Luke's problems stem from a complete lack of depth and talent at the NT position and RE/LE positions which in the 34 are about as heavy as 3 tech DTs. Luke lead the league in tackles for the first 5 or so weeks before KK went down. We went into this season underweight across the front tbh.

That could also be true.

4 hours ago, DeAngelo Beason said:

Luke was a shell of his former self last year too.  Let's not blame the 3-4.

Unfortunately, so could this.

[ForMac]

If we recommit to the 3-4 with the new staff, than I'd be trading my superstar MLB and picking up a possible 1st, or likely second. 29 year old, with a 2 year retooling who is one hit away from the head to being possibly career ending vs a 23ish year old stud piece to reinforce the 3-4? Gonna miss our GOAT MLB, who would be playing out of position.

[Moo Daeng]

Beason fell off barbecue of injuries. While it may be a similar in that it's two middle linebackers who had better years they don't seem like similar situations or players beyond that.

[Jangler]

Sean Connery?

[Davidson Deac II]

Its a team game.  If you watch the games, the defensive line is getting pushed around.  I am not saying Luke doesn't deserve some blame, but he could be the greatest linebacker in the history of football. and it wouldn't matter if the rest of the defense was performing poorly.