Defensive End - How Big is Our Need?

[GTripp0012]

Originally Posted by JDALY27

I don't like Daniels as a starter on the end. He is quality depth but should not be our go to guy at DE across from Carter. Draft DT or DE at # 6.

Well, I presented a theory in another thread that said to fill a gaping need, you need to do it with a cheaper end vet and a high draft pick.

Daniels at this point would be the immediate solution to the vet side of that. With him at LE, we don't have a gaping hole. We just simply don't have any youth.

In fact, I don't believe that we have a gaping hole anywhere in the line. I think we are just starting 4 below average players, and when you do that at the defenses most criticial position, bad things happen to the entire defense. But we don't need to bring in any older vet FAs to make any quick fixes is what I'm saying.

The only guy in the first round of the draft that could play LE for us is Adam Carriker. While I think he is a good prospect, his skill set doesn't strike me as being all that unique. He's going to be a good one in this league, but Okoye would do so much more for this team once he's in his prime than Carriker will.

It's going to take multiple years to get some youth accross the line, but if we take DT now, we can reevaluate our DE situation after the season to find our biggest need. Maybe in 2007, Andre Carter becomes the sack master we thought he would. Certainly in that case, we wouldn't look to draft a smaller pass rushing defensive end in 2008. We could be scouring the 2nd and 3rd rounds for a guy who is 280-285 with lots of college experience and a good universial grade from scouts.

Maybe in 2007, Carter actually regresses from his poor 2006 campaign. If this happens, we should go into the 2008 draft looking to pick the best DE available (regardless of style), because no longer should Andre Carter be in the future plans.

Ultimately, while Carriker would be the one universal DE prospect who would help our scheme no matter what, theres much better value in waiting a year to better evaluate our DE situation, so we know just how much value we are looking for. Since we know what our DT situation will be like next year without a second year player ready to step into an important role, that certainly seems to be our biggest need.