[69RamFan]

A shot of cortisone.
or next man up,,,
Either Smart or Fox....

[69RamFan]

That's sounds good,,, putting both Gaines and SJD,,, to clog up the middle,
have Fowler AD next to each other and on the other side, have either Ebukam or Matthews... and rotate Smart and Fox with either Gaines or SJD,,,,
I would even put Matthews on the ILB on some plays.

But they must keep one of those two NT in the middle to keep it clogged up if the get rotated out...

Every time they took out SJD the last game,,,
they spread the D-line out and the middle was wide open,,, We can't do that with Kamara....

[CanuckRightWinger]

The problem, besides being one starter down...
….IS THAT THAT ONE STARTER IS BEING PAID $10MIL THIS SEASON!! OUCH!!

[max]

Brockers is gone next year. They need the money for better players.

They can get a good run stuffer for half his salary.

[aeneas1]

rapp is such a gamer put him in there, he'd probably give the saints oline all they could handle! back to reality, mcvay seems to think brockers will be ready to go, he's "optimistic".

[CanuckRightWinger]

Totally agree max!

How is Brockers worth $10Million THIS year is my question!!

[Indrid Cold]

Gaines inactive last week. IMO, he ain't starting anytime soon, injury or no.

[/zn/]

Brockers has been a better player. He was good at DE when they moved him there in 2017. They say he was banged up in 2018 and it seems he was at some point in game 1 this year too.

Having said that yeah I can see them moving on next year. If nothing else it's starting to look like he gets banged up too much.

However replacing him next year means a high draft pick, right? Because you can't count on a lower picked rookie to handle that position. Maybe a free agent but you have to think that would cost...at a time when they also have to think about paying a few of their own FAs. So a rookie would be better that way.

As for this week, if he can't play, who takes his place? IMO probably Fox. Who is a little light for base 3/4 DE but basically, that's who they have. I dunno...if he plays and can handle the position maybe that fixes things for next year too...though he's also a free agent after the season. Maybe it's just time to draft a couple of DL high.


....

[/zn/]

That's why I floated the Gaines/Joseph thing..
I think first down.. if it's not the Gaines/Noteboom thing... we see Smart in there. Just more built for run-D.. Fox rotating in a bunch.

Yup.. gonna have to use at least a second rounder, imo, on a Dline guy to replace Brockers. Probably have to bring in a cheap vet as well.

My hesitation there is the idea of a 6'1 DE in a 3/4 base. And that's going against one of the 2-3 best ROTs in the league, one of the few good ones who can actually play LOT. This may be a moot point since Ramcyzk shut out Watt. So they can beat the Saints but not by dominating the right side of their OL. Which therefore...is not going to be the plan. Whoever plays left DE is probably going just be a sacrificed figure trying to create space for Matthews.

Anyway Saints aside, this wasn't supposed to be what happened...just putting the obvious down in black and white, but, Franklin-Myers was supposed to take the next step. It was supposed to be Brockers doing better, backed up by F-M. My guess based on reading various things is that F-M added weight to be a more traditional 3/4 DE and the result was he wasn't as athletic, and maybe even got discouraged. He was immediately picked up by a 4/3 team and probably really is more of a (left-side) 4/3 DE.

I've heard that Fox added some weight too (deliberately) so who knows about that.

Yeah 2nd rounder or even a 1st rounder maybe. Just speculating but I like their chances of getting CBs lower in the rounds better than getting a functioning rookie DE lower down.

...

[PARAM]

Jonathan Franklin Myers seemed like a possible replacement for Brockers but he's with the Jets now IIRC.