Todd McShay says we'll draft A.J. Green.

[Enigmatic Evil]

I can't see Green falling to us, but crazier things have happened. This is also the beginning of the Draft Hype season so I'd expect a half-dozen articles like this with a different player that we're going to take at #6...

I'd love to see us draft a beast D-Lineman. Getting pressure on the QB is one of our teams biggest weaknesses. I know we NEED a WR BAD. But I really, REALLY, would hate to get burned again ala Braylon. It's just something that has me really hesitant. I've been reading there's some good WR depth in this years draft is there any merit to that?

[Jax Dawg]

Originally Posted by Enigmatic Evil

I can't see Green falling to us, but crazier things have happened. This is also the beginning of the Draft Hype season so I'd expect a half-dozen articles like this with a different player that we're going to take at #6...

I'd love to see us draft a beast D-Lineman. Getting pressure on the QB is one of our teams biggest weaknesses. I know we NEED a WR BAD. But I really, REALLY, would hate to get burned again ala Braylon. It's just something that has me really hesitant. I've been reading there's some good WR depth in this years draft is there any merit to that?

I agree defensive lineman is a huge need but we need to know what D we are going to run before the draft to help decide shceme we are going to run 4-3 or 3-4 and which people mesh with which scheme.

I saw a mock that had us picking one of the 3 or 4 d-linemen rated top 10 then coming back in the 2nd rd with picking WR Blackmon from OK ST. That wouldn't be so bad...

[Enigmatic Evil]

Given the personnel we currently have. I can't see us cleaning house for the sake of re-organizing. I will be surprised if we switch to a 4-3... I really don't know. With a new coach, maybe we will see a new defensive philosophy but the scheme... I can't see us changing too much about that. You never know though.

We would have to get rid of some linebackers, and bring in at least 2-3 Linemen if we were going to switch up from a 3-4 to a 4-3... we don't have the strength on the D-Line to run a 4-3 adequately at this time. A big draft pick and a big FA pickup could change that though.

[Flugel]

Originally Posted by MackTruck

The 1 gap or Steeler zone blitz is a good form of 3-4, but the Belicheck 3-4 sucks and is hard to find players for.

Lawrence Taylor, Carl Banks, Pepper Johnson, Gary Reasons, Harry Carson, Van Pelt, Leonard Marshall all struggled in the 3-4 BB came from? How old are you? For NE doing so terrible with it, they've played in 4 Superbowls since 2000 and had an undefeated regular season within that period. Is it me, or did Mike Vrabel do WAY better in BB's 3-4 than he did in Pitts' 3-4? All throughout college ball, Bruschi and Vrabel played with a hand down. BB did a nice job transitioning them to great football from a 2 point stance so I'm not sure your statement holds water here. Willie McGinest was a DE at USC that transitioned reasonably well too. And believe it or not, they found Mayo and some other young LBers they're happy with.

On top of that, the Steelers don't play 1 gap schemes. The closest they get to that are X-stunts where they want the blitzers shooting to the inside after the men in 3 point stances pry blockers to the outside through the man to open up those gaps. There's nothing 1 gap about it. Their leading sackers are their backers Woodley and Harrison pretty much every year while Hampton, Smith, Keisel and rotation guys like Hood and Hoke try to keep blockers off the linebackers with 2 gap integrity. I'll bet Polly has more hits on QBs than Hampton even though nobody on their defense lines up closer to the QB than Hampton. I've even seen Hampton drop back into a short designated inside zone on passes believe it or not. I've also seen both Smith and Keisel covering outside zone/flats on occasion. They may occasionally throw in a slant scheme toward power or wide side of the field where backers scrap the other way to offer up a new wrinkle here and there. However, that's not generally the rule with them.

I don't know if Dick Lebeau was as spoiled with talent at Buffalo and Cincy. Hence, I didn't start hearing the term genius attached to his name until he got to work with the talent pool Pitt's drafts produced. We COULD have added Woodley; but Savage thought D'Qwell Jackson was a better 2nd round pick right? Tough to blame RAC for that.

What worries me is how many 1st round projected DEs disappoint their NFL teams. Courtney Brown, Gaines Adams, Eric Flowers, Huey Richardson, Gholston and many more. This position has a high bust volume.. Even when Courtney was healthy teams enjoyed runnign AT him because he picked a side with olay and made things easy. He was ALWAYS toughest to block in backside pursuit when plays went away from him, which of course got exposed when cutback runners like Corey Dillon loved every minute of it.

[PlaygroundLegend]

Yeah, this draft is VERY deep at WR

Check this thread out to see some of the 2nd and 3rd round prospects, pretty good
http://www.barkinghard.com/forums/cl...vers-look.html