In all seriousness would it not be better to have Mario, Antonio, Watt, Reed, Demeco, Cushing, and Barwin in on passing downs? I'm sorry but that personnel group would be absolutely a sick front 7. Additionally I'm curious to hear what you guys thought about Troy Nolan. Would it be wiser to use him and Manning and put Glover back at corner? Please share thoughts. Also lastly Mario no matter his stat count by years end will have made a solid impact on this team. The extra blocker / attention still seems to be paid to his side and will now finally complement and help our group of players who actually now CAN get to the quarterback. I'm thinking 8ish for the number of sacks for Mario but I think it'll be because his teammates are going to accumulate so many more of the sacks and not because he's not able to get to the Qb or that he sucks. Just my 2 cents on that.
mario to end is unlikely. He would have to be completely ineffective this year for that to happen. I do like the idea that he could play DE at times...just to throw a different wrinkle. Watt/Mario DE combo is pretty sick. Texans seem committed to GQ at safety. I suppose you could throw him in at CB in a worst case scenario, but I just don't think it will happen...not that it's a bad idea though. For the select few who said Mario did nothing against the 49ers, based on the stat sheet, in that highlight video you can see he is right there on most of those big defensive plays.
In previous years when Mario got doubled up the other guys didn't do much of anything. This year it seems when they double Mario they are paying for it from Smith, Reed, Watt, etc....
I was a bit drunk at Bricks while watching the game, but looking at the highlights and some of the dvr today... I must say Mario seems to be coming along. Not leaps and bounds, but at least he wasn't incredibly ineffective today like the other preseason games so far. As others have said, he was right in there on a lot of the sacks we had and more importantly helped to pressure the QB. I don't mind seeing Mario's sack numbers go down if he can contribute half the time or more in a similar fashion to last night's game. Here's to hoping for Super Mario.
Probably in the nickel. Slide Kareem down and put in GQ at #2 CB with Nolan at safety. With Nolan's ball hawking skills, we need him on the field.
i see what you're saying but it's a scary proposition to put a guy who hasnt played CB full time to the #2 spot. At the least, i could see GQ in the slot and Nolan at safety but i still don't think that would happen, even though it isnt a bad idea per se.
I was always a supporter of Nolan being on the field rather than Jackson, which would have meant Quin staying at corner. I would have just preferred for our only competent corner from last season to not change positions. But I doubt they would change him back now.
Ditto. I thought Nolan should have kept the position last year over Wilson. He had a learning curve in front of him, but I'd rather see that than wait for Wilson to un-age.
Yes, but there is no other situation in the NFL where it is more flatly obvious that the head coach has nothing to do with one side of the ball than here. Kubiak is the coordinator of the offense and press secretary of the defense.
There are lots of situations like that: Jets Cowboys Redskins (where kubiak gets it from) Chargers Packers Chiefs Eagles Saints Rams All these teams have coordinator-specialist head coaches that run their side (just like kubiak does) and leaves the other side just to the coordinator. Dingy was also the same way before he retired. Some coaches start becoming more active with time (like belicheck, Parcells, Jimmy johnson) but most coordinator turned head coaches are Goin to entrust decision making to the experts.
I'm well aware of that. However, my statement read as follows: there is no other situation in the NFL where it is more flatly obvious that the head coach has nothing to do with one side of the ball than here. I didn't say it was the "only" situation where this was going on, just the most painfully, stunningly, no-doubt-about-it obvious. After 5 years of Kubiak's input on defense resulted in a massive failboat, nobody is probably more publicly removed from the other side of the ball than him.
