Defensive Position Maze

Howdy runners. How are your legs doing? It has been a while since our last run. I need you guys to be fresh for the new season. You want to hit the season running, with fresh legs. It's gonna be a long season. We looked at the offensive side of the ball but if you want to win a championship you want to have a solid defense. You need to have them boys who ain't scared of anyone.

So now on the defensive side of the ball who should you rank highest in importance? For defense I do not think it matters what formation you run. All formations require DLs, LBs, and DBs. The only question is of the three positions which is the most important? I am torn on this one on picking which is the most important, so to give myself sometime to figure that out, I am going to talk about who is on the bottom of the list.

I have the DL at the bottom of the list. They are important do not get me wrong, but the guys behind them are more important. You want to have a good line to put pressure on the QB and also to stop the run. With few coaches running the ball now, I don’t know if you really need an excellent line upfront, maybe a good line is all you need. I am not saying your line should be crap but I think you can get by with an okay line. I would not worry about spending too much on a DL unless he is going to be a game changer for your team, like a sky is the limit type of game changer. For a STL guy, I say go balls to the wall, lock the guy ASAP and sign him. He is a sky is the limit recruit, those are few and far in between. I hope everyone managed to pick up the DL they wanted this recruiting season, the Aggies did not pick up anyone and it is going to be a long season for them.

Now that I have had a bit of time to think about who ranks higher in importance between LBs and DBs. I am going to say that the DBs are the second most important defensive players. I know, I know. I see some of you throwing a fit right now based off what you just read. I just think DBs are second most important defensive players because most coaches from what I have seen, throw to the RBs and TEs. Since we have DBs covering WRs, they drop a peg in my ranking system. Now I am not saying you don’t need to have excellent DBs, oh yes you do. You have a few of these guys on the field at all times and they make plays for you. They cover WRs who tend to go deeper in the pass plays and you want to have good guys covering them. For the DBs I think it is more a question of what kind of DB do you want on your team, but this is true of all positions, you want to have the right kind of player on your team. If you are going to be facing coach ebel at Houston you want to make sure you have some good DBs on your team as Houston throws the ball out of the shotgun formation and they will stress your DBs who will be required on every play. Your list might be different from mine and I hope it is, you know who you are going to face and should set you team up to face them.

So now everyone knows I rank LBs as the most important defensive players. They play an integral role in most defenses. They are required in all plays. They play a part in the run game and also in the passing game. They cover people and also make tackles to stop the run game. They are used in blitzes more often than their brothers behind them the DBs. They are required to do a bit more than the DBs in my opinion. It does not matter what formation you run, you need to have the best LBs on you roster. They are the signal callers in real life and for me that says they are kinda important and I know our game is not real life but you can always pick up a few things from real life. Now, should you battle for LBs? I don’t know, I always lose my battles so clearly I should not battle for recruits because I will lose. Similar to what I said above about STL DL, you should battle for STL recruits regardless of their position.

I know I did not talk about kickers and punters in this mini-series, it is not because they are not important but it is because I rank kickers higher. They give you points so they are more important. Now I know some of you are saying my ranking system and logic are all flawed and you are right, that is why I am not too good at this game. This is just the rumblings of a guy who does not know a lot, I am open to be supplied with better information so please somebody help me. Also are we gonna here the end of the story from Pistol Pete, because like I have been waiting for GoT, I am now waiting for the story to continue.