Philip Merling Article

[SmootSmack]

Originally Posted by mooby

I hope I'm wrong when I say this, but to me Phillip Merling is more of a run stuffing defensive end then a pass rusher. I was watching some of his highlights on NFLN today and he didn't really stand out as a pass rusher.

Well, here are several things I've heard (in no particular order)

-Blache loves Daniels (but I think we all knew that already) and would ideally like to get a similar player seeing as to Daniels is a bit long in the tooth

-They don't want to draft a pure pass rusher. Meaning they don't want someone who's only value is really against the pass because they realize AC's weakness is playing the run. They don't want that issue at both ends

-The team is really high on Wilson (and supposedly Buzbee, to a much lesser extent) and think he can really excel as their unofficial "sack specialist" and they like the idea of having a "young Daniels" that can slide to the inside effectively on situations where Wilson would come in

So all the above kind of points to Merling

-Also, I think they're trading their 2nd round pick