Lions' D Line for 2014 -- Mike Beamish re David Menard

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WestCoastJoe
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Another area of concern, if not to the degree of the O Line. For this fan, anyway.

From the roster.

Imports ...

Keron Williams, 29 Not on the roster at this time.

Khreem Smith, 34

Eric Taylor, 32

Brandon Jordan, 25

Adrian Awasom, 30

Non Imports

Jabar Westerman, 24

Jermaine Reid, 29
..........

Not as dicey a situation as the O Line.

But Khreem Smith, who IMO has given very good performance, is 34.

Eric Taylor, another veteran who has IMO given very good performance, is 32.

Keron Williams. Will he return?

Defensive tackle? We seemed to greatly miss the push once provided by Khalif Mitchell. Not that easy to replace.

Jabar Westerman IMO is an outstanding non import. Dunno how much Jermaine Reid has helped, or can help.

Got some age concerns. Do we need the legs and speed of youth?
...........

Depending on what the Lions want to do, we can find imports for the D Line. They can be relatively plentiful from the U.S. But we need to do it. Loads of guys have been brought in, showed varying degrees of potential, and been shipped off.

As Jerry Glanville of the Atlanta Falcons used to say, the players get a comic book, an apple, and a bus ticket out of town.
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Jimmy Johnson's Game Keys: Protect the ball. Make plays.

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squishy35
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Add Chris Wilson to that mix?

What I would love to see, as would anyone else is a strong fast DE ala James Parker toughness, speed, determination and smarts.... Hopefully there are some promising US camps attendees...
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korey&dante4ever
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I guess it all comes down to whether we can find an import or sign Ted Laurent/Alex Hall.
Finding an import rookie that can play with effectiveness IMO feels like a 20-30% chance to do such a thing. Could be lower. Don't want to rely on that scenario, and at this stage, we are.

You just have to look at my signature line below to realize that my soul gets crushed everytime I think about our O and D Lines at their present state.
-Believes in building from the trenches outwards. A great O-Line and D-Line guarantees an above average team.
-A coach that has to give a motivational pregame speech is probably a coach that is insecure about his game plan.
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WestCoastJoe
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squishy35 wrote:Add Chris Wilson to that mix?

What I would love to see, as would anyone else is a strong fast DE ala James Parker toughness, speed, determination and smarts.... Hopefully there are some promising US camps attendees...
Yes. I missed Chris Wilson on the list.

Not sure he provided all that much last year. Far away from All Star performance, it seems to me.
John Madden's Team Policies: Be on time. Pay attention. Play like hell on game day.

Jimmy Johnson's Game Keys: Protect the ball. Make plays.

Walter Payton's Advice to Kids: Play hard. Play fair. Have fun.
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I see this position group as a bigger concern than the O-line. I don't know whether many of the guys listed are really that good. Brandon Jordan did look good at one point in 2012, but didn't seem to do much last season. We can hope Keron Williams can still play (on the end). Westerman, of course, is fine as a NI D-lineman, but is Jermaine Reid that good (I can't remember)? I think that Wilson, Taylor, and Smith all may well be past it. Was Awasom any good when he played? I see a serious lack of real power in the middle of the D-line. Taylor was our best interior D-lineman last year, and that's not necessarily saying all that much. In my view we need two new big import D tackles (MLF's under tackle), who we could rotate with Westerman. Don't know about the ends. Maybe Keron, but who else at this point?

We have a solid linebacking corps now, but they will not be able to function to their potential unless we can get some big bodies (who can play) in front of them. I absolutely agree with korey&dante4ever that success depends on dominating lines on both sides of the ball.
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Not sold on Chris Wilson yet. Has a tendency to overrun plays and lose contain.
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cromartie
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Considering the amount of ring rust he had, I thought Wilson performed pretty well. He's enthused about coming back, and I'm happy to have him in the rotation.

Westerman gets graded on a curve because of his passport. He's OK in my opinion and shows flashes.

But for <insert deity of choice here> sake, get an influx of talent on the interior so you can move Williams back outside, where he belongs, provided he re-signs.
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korey&dante4ever
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cromartie wrote:Westerman gets graded on a curve because of his passport.
Haha I like that.
-Believes in building from the trenches outwards. A great O-Line and D-Line guarantees an above average team.
-A coach that has to give a motivational pregame speech is probably a coach that is insecure about his game plan.
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cromartie wrote:Westerman gets graded on a curve because of his passport. He's OK in my opinion and shows flashes.
LOL. What I think you really mean is that he gets taken out of the distribution, leaving the rest of the poor sods to be graded on the curve. :wink:
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notahomer
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Lets hope they work on stopping QB sneaks/draws right up the middle, especially late in games........
TheLionKing
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notahomer wrote:Lets hope they work on stopping QB sneaks/draws right up the middle, especially late in games........
Hope Mark Washington learned from Stubler's mistakes.
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WestCoastJoe
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Haven't heard much (or anything) about our plans for the D Line this year.

Will Carl Hairston be the coach? Who will be the LB coach? I expect Mark W will coach the DBs along with DC duties.

Will we try to wring another year out of our veterans, Eric Taylor and Khreem Smith? Will we sign Keron Williams? Will we find a guy to make us forget Khalif Mitchell? LOL Not likely on that last one. The Man Child is a rare one. Phenomenal push in the middle. A true pocket collapser. A true run stopper. Cannot just go out and sign one.

I expect we will go with a 4 man front.

I expect we will go with a 6 man rotation. I sure hope so. To me, it is a very short sighted approach to try to get by with a 5 man rotation on the huge CFL field, with mobile QBs, fast running backs, and the need for fresh legs attacking the QB.

Will we score some extremely talented guys from our free agent camps in the South? I see Hamilton is going all out with their camps. Not a surprise.

I have been greatly disappointed in a disconnect that seems to have occurred between our recruiting, our judgment, the personnel guys, and the coaching staff. Under Roy Shivers, we brought in countless guys (although tracked and counted by Khreem Smith as threats to his position) for the D Line. One after another, they showed some stuff, and one after another, they were sent packing. I can't help but feel that Roy and Rich were not on the same page in terms of what they wanted. Rich seemed to want veterans that he had worked with previously. Eric Taylor. Julius Williams. Whatever. It seems to me that there is a huge pool of guys from the U.S. that can come in and play very, very effectively in the CFL.

We will see how things shape up.
John Madden's Team Policies: Be on time. Pay attention. Play like hell on game day.

Jimmy Johnson's Game Keys: Protect the ball. Make plays.

Walter Payton's Advice to Kids: Play hard. Play fair. Have fun.
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Carl Hairston is still listed as the defensive line coach.
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WestCoastJoe wrote:Haven't heard much (or anything) about our plans for the D Line this year.

Will Carl Hairston be the coach? Who will be the LB coach? I expect Mark W will coach the DBs along with DC duties.

Will we try to wring another year out of our veterans, Eric Taylor and Khreem Smith? Will we sign Keron Williams? Will we find a guy to make us forget Khalif Mitchell? LOL Not likely on that last one. The Man Child is a rare one. Phenomenal push in the middle. A true pocket collapser. A true run stopper. Cannot just go out and sign one.

I expect we will go with a 4 man front.

I expect we will go with a 6 man rotation. I sure hope so. To me, it is a very short sighted approach to try to get by with a 5 man rotation on the huge CFL field, with mobile QBs, fast running backs, and the need for fresh legs attacking the QB.

Will we score some extremely talented guys from our free agent camps in the South? I see Hamilton is going all out with their camps. Not a surprise.

I have been greatly disappointed in a disconnect that seems to have occurred between our recruiting, our judgment, the personnel guys, and the coaching staff. Under Roy Shivers, we brought in countless guys (although tracked and counted by Khreem Smith as threats to his position) for the D Line. One after another, they showed some stuff, and one after another, they were sent packing. I can't help but feel that Roy and Rich were not on the same page in terms of what they wanted. Rich seemed to want veterans that he had worked with previously. Eric Taylor. Julius Williams. Whatever. It seems to me that there is a huge pool of guys from the U.S. that can come in and play very, very effectively in the CFL.

We will see how things shape up.
Yeah...this is a major, major concern in my view. Aside from Westerman (who is needed for the ratio as much as anything else), I 'm not sure we have one really dominant D-line player at the moment. As you say, most of all we need one or two big, strong interior guys--like Khalif Mitchell, but I'm not sure our DEs are up to par either. Maybe Keron Williams gets back to form playing on the end. There's no indication of Wally's or Mark Washington's plans on this. This is where I was hoping they'd be active with free agency. However, unless we're going to roll the dice with our older guys--Taylor, Wilson, Smith--(which would be risky in my opinion), we're going to have to really beat the bushes down South with determination to find a Mitchell or two, and some 260-275-lb. mobile DEs. If I had to crystal-ball this, I'd guess that we find one, or at most two, guys to compete, but will have to rely to some extent on our graybeards. I guess it's possible that we can put together a dominant D-line, but it's not looking likely at this point.

You mentioned Carl Hairston. I've wondered about his effectiveness as a D-line coach. Perhaps we were spoiled by the excellent job that Randy Melvin did in 2011, but the line hasn't been as effective since he left (particularly last season). Now, this may be unfair to Big Daddy, as the line was younger under Melvin and we had Khalif.
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David
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WestCoastJoe wrote:I have been greatly disappointed in a disconnect that seems to have occurred between our recruiting, our judgment, the personnel guys, and the coaching staff. Under Roy Shivers, we brought in countless guys (although tracked and counted by Khreem Smith as threats to his position) for the D Line. One after another, they showed some stuff, and one after another, they were sent packing. I can't help but feel that Roy and Rich were not on the same page in terms of what they wanted. Rich seemed to want veterans that he had worked with previously. Eric Taylor. Julius Williams. Whatever. It seems to me that there is a huge pool of guys from the U.S. that can come in and play very, very effectively in the CFL.
Last year's recruiting was particularly weak, which I suspect is why we recently shuffled the scouting deck. Really nothing to show for 6 months worth of watching tapes, scouting bowl games and viewing guys first-hand at camps, except Korey Williams and Chris Hart! Forget Cord Parks. He was the "rights to" player the Argos threw in with the Khalif trade.

I suspect you're right. Roy and Rich were not on the same page. I think Rich liked lighter, more agile athletes (hence the reason for the Keron experiment at DT), which is a shame. It cost us a pretty good DT prospect Edmon McLam (6'5" 290lbs) from Old Dominion - recommended by Thomas DeMarco. I thought he had a really good training camp in Kamloops, but did not want to go on the PR and was subsequently signed by the Philadelphia Eagles.

Sure wish there was a way to pry Keith Shologan away from the RedBlacks (maybe one of our non-import receivers?). An effective, big-bodied DT, and a non-import to boot.


DH :cool:
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