Kearly final thoughts on roster??

[Hawknballs]

one thing that seems to get overlooked a lot is that your team needs some good special teams players. So for all the guys who made it that 'don't make too much sense', keep in mind that you can't just load up with O/D starters. #1 it's too expensive #2 some guys are just great special teams players, and that's a huge part of the game.

 

[olyfan63]

...
I think they should have let Lotulelei go. He's the kind of LB you find every year late in the draft. More athlete than football player. You can't teach instincts and instincts are very important for LBs. Lotulelei doesn't have that 6th sense for the ball like Allen Bradford does. If he cleared waivers and made our PS, then great. If he gets signed by another team, oh well.

Speaking of LBs, I thought they kept way too many of them. I like Malcolm Smith and Mike Morgan, but they'll barely ever see the field this year. Ditching Howard to keep all three of Smith/Morgan/Lotulelei seems really hard to justify. We've got a zillion backup non-pass rush LBs right now. That was the easiest place on the team to make cuts, but they opted to cut some very promising and rare talents at DT instead. I thought that was a head scratcher. A year from now, when Bennett might be too expensive to keep, that decision will probably be something they regret.
...

Trying to figure out what the Hawks and PC/JS are thinking, as reflected in roster choices... our favorite sport lately.

PETE'S PRIORITY: SPECIAL TEAMS *DOMINANCE*
I was surprised by how DOMINANT our Special Teams were during preseason. (And I guess our ST's were #2 overall statistically in the NFL last season) I wonder if Pete and John have their
own little "Moneyball" going on this one for player value during the season, what with a combination of special teams value, and ability to move players around on D, frequency of injuries, etc., and they concluded that keeping more LB types was the highest overall value this year. They seem to really like the speedy, slightly undersize linebacker type, guys like Malcolm Smith, Lotulelei, Farwell, along with good-size DBs and RBs that are also good special teams players. (e.g., the smallish receiver Deon Butler a couple seasons ago played too small for what Seattle wants on Special Teams)

PETE'S PRIORITY: DEFENSIVE TEAM SPEED
Lotulelei is actually a half-step quicker than Bobby Wagner on change-of-direction plays covering less than 20 yards, and essentially football-speed-identical-or-better to Wagner on everything except a weakside or downfield pursuit of 30 yards or more. Lotulei is also slightly quicker/faster than Chancellor, Browner, and Farwell in most of the "football speed" measures. Similar statements apply to Korey Toomer (on IR/PUP I think) and the slightly larger-frame Practice Squad member Ty Powell; all have a sub-7-second 3-cone times. (So does Mike Rob and Allen Bradford. Over 7.00: Marshawn Lynch, Spencer Ware, Derrick Coleman, Malcolm Smith, Golden Tate, Sidney Rice) Amazing... our freakin' linebackers are overall as fast or faster than our running backs and half our secondary, and quicker/more agile than all our receivers except Doug Baldwin! Bruce Irvin is the quickest & fastest guy on our defense, apart from Earl Thomas (it's a draw with Christine Michael.) KJ Wright, Kam, and Browner are positively "glacial" compared to half our LB corps, but we love them anyway.

CONCLUSIONS FROM PETE & JOHN'S ROSTER & PERSONNEL CHOICES
1) PC/JS have evolved to place a *much* higher value on Special Teams in player personnel decisions than generally discussed. Farwell, Maragos, Lotulelei, Malcolm Smith--all made the 53-man roster.
2) Lotulelei's and others expected prowess on Special Teams is part of what made Mike Rob and his 31% of snaps + Special Teams expendable.
3) Pete *loves* quick, speedy, stout linebackers, and keeping a healthy stable of them is among his top player personnel priorities. (The team defensive speed emphasis is also a huge plus when matching up with San Fran and the running QB threat of Kaepernick.)

PETE & JOHN'S MONEYBALL MODEL
Besides salary cap issues, I would expect the JS/PC Roster Moneyball calculation includes things like...
* The likelihood that released players would be claimed vs clearing waivers to go on PS, trying to maximize the amount of "retained talent" available to the team during the season, i.e., it's not player "absolute value" to the team, but risk of being claimed.
* Keeping a "fully stocked" reservoir of available talent for all position groups during the season to cover injuries, between roster, PS, and available man-off-the-street free agents. Hence the rotating Practice Squad membership... (Gotta say that TE depth plans still seem to be a mystery...)
* Preventing division rivals from improving by snatching up Seattle castoffs. I felt like the Moffitt "trade" to Denver was partly to keep teams from within the NFC West from claiming him, e.g., Rams, Cards, and thereby making division opponents incrementally more competitive with Seattle. Harper... well, the 49ers got us on that one.

I'd guess maybe Idzik was the "keeper of the model" when he was here, and some other geek(s) have taken over that function since he left. With Paul Allen the technologist as the owner, and all the technogeek sports enthusiasts, aerospace engineers, software engineers, etc., in the Pac NW, we can damn well bet the Hawks have a bunch of complex, multi-factor automated models and scenarios that factor a bunch of stuff in, staff whose job is to plug in data from practices, games, etc., and then Pete, John, and the other coaches look at the recommendations from the automated models, and use that as a factor in their decision-making. I'd be curious to know if anyone has specific insight into how the team approaches all this, and if there are threads that discuss their process.

WHY KEEPING LOTULELEI IS THE RIGHT CALL
So, Kearly, I am going to disagree with you for about the first time I can ever recall, and say it was a good decision, clearly aligned with the team's philosophy, values, and competition models, to keep Lotulelei over everyone else they let go. He will be a Special Teams *beast* for us, and as he gets coached up, will be on the field at an outside LB spot, and will be an upgrade from Malcolm Smith in that role. Factor in 30+year old Special Teams ace Heath Farwell probably departing in a year or so, and it makes even more sense. Check out Lotulelei's college film.. First clip, watch him explode to chase down and tackle 4.4 speed WR Quinton Patton to stop a probably would-be TD for no gain. Nice read and instincts on that play too. That will come in very handy, since Patton's on the 49ers.

[youtube]ZG6OFh5XRVw[/youtube]

 

[Scottemojo]

Thanks to the guys who ask me to give an opinion, but I am much more of a what happened guy than what will happen. I honestly have never had a feel for what Pete is doing next. I thought big press corners would fail big, I thought he undervalued corners, I thought moving Big Red to DE was terrible, and wondered what the hell they were doing getting so many huge guys for a zone block system. That's why Pete gets 8 mil and I just watch.

So, I don't know why we are carrying only two traditional tight ends. I don't have a true answer for carrying four halfbacks. I can't make heads or tails of what our defensive line scheme is going to look like. I can barely tell who is a line backer and who is a defensive end in this scheme. I have learned that there is usually less to worry about than I think there is.

However, I do know we ran some two back read option sets last year, and passed out of those looks. Maybe some of that? That is all I got for ya.

 

[Largent80]

Well, fans are no different than opposing defensive coaches. None of us knows what Pete is going to do next.

I love it.

 

[danbogart]

Final thoughts?

2 words.





SUPERB OWL.

 

[652cHAWK]

I'm surprised they went with 2 TEs and have yet to acquire a 3rd. This team runs a lot of 2 TE stuff. That's even more surprising given Miller's foot condition. McGrath isn't great, but going 2 TEs seems reckless to me. Our emergency TE will probably be an offensive tackle, one with essentially no experience at the position who isn't on an NFL roster for his soft hands.

I was convinced that Sean McGrath was going to be the third TE here. Looked pretty good out there, beard and all.

 

[kearly]

a long, well thought out response

Regarding special teams, it's possible that may have been a factor in the decision but I would argue it shouldn't have been. When you are looking at the last few guys that make the 53 you are typically dealing with players who will be on the inactive portion of the roster (only 45 of the 53 spots are active and can play in games). Basically, those last couple spots pretty much just come down to who the most talented players are, or who's most likely to not clear waivers. Anyway, we have so many LBs right now that it's all but assured that 1-2 of them will be on the inactive list every week, so keeping the extra LB for special teams use is a non-factor in this case. Either he'd be inactive himself or he'd push another LB onto the inactive list when activated.

Lotulelei hits hard and runs fast, but doesn't track well and at times lost sight of the football. I saw a few play on kick coverage where he spun around trying to find the ball carrier and looked "lost" doing it. He also ran right by runners, missed tackles, and made basic mistakes. He had less than half as many tackles as Bradford did this preseason despite having far more experience playing the position. He doesn't have the minutiae down, and doesn't strike me as a "natural" out there, in the same way that Charlie Whitehurst didn't look very natural at QB.

I do think he's could become a plus special teamer with time, perhaps, but he's not there yet and he may never be. And even if he was, he's probably going to be one of our inactives anyway, or he'll get activated and push another LB onto the inactive list.

I am impressed by Lotulelei's "truck index," (I made term that up), his combination of burst, pure speed with size and power. He can get skinny through a gap as a blitzer. He closes well (when he doesn't miss) and he hits hard.

I think the reason they kept him has nothing to do with special teams and everything to do with Pete's track record of coaching up players with tools. If successful in coaching him up, Lotulelei could be a fearsome WILL LB. Guys with his athleticism are available dirt cheap every year, and he was a decent bet to make our PS. So I don't think he was worth the spot over Howard or Brooks. We got lucky and retained Brooks (for now). We weren't as lucky with Howard (or Harper, for that matter).

The best argument I can make for keeping Lotulelei is that it assures us that Pete will get the chance to coach him up for a year. If we ditched him and brought in Lotulelei/Toomer 3.0 next offseason, that guy would be starting from scratch and the odds are good he'd have a lot to learn. Our players almost always look better in year two, so we'll see how this move looks a year from now.

 

[Tech Worlds]

I think it's pretty simple on why we have the skewed roster numbers we do.

Pete is just putting the best and most versatile athletes on this team.

Bigger, faster, stronger. It literally is that.

I think his thought was that if he has to play a guy out of position he would rather do so with the best athletes possible.

Bigger, faster, stronger.