I have seen a few others speculate that he could be the end for Clem...but Clem probably still has another 2-3 good years left in him. On this thread someone was speculating maybe will spell the end for Red Bryant, but he is playing pretty well so far this year and is 2 years younger than Clem. Something is definitely going to have to give. I think a lot of this also hinges on what exactly we get from Avril as well this year.
If Avril is solid but not really spectacular, then it will be a bit easier for them to make moves with players currently on the roster. If Avril really comes out later this year and starts being consistently lights out as well, then everything will be that much more complicated. This FO is going to have to get really creative on being able to keep guys here and hopefully through evaluations by Pete/John and the rest of the staff they will keep the best players here and keep doing the great job they are doing finding players for depth in the draft that they can keep developing into good players.
Something else to consider is that we don't even know how Irvin is going to do, or going to look this year. If he comes back and is just tearing it up, that will make things a little easier because he is still on his rookie contract. With this roster being so stacked there are going to be some decisions that will be very painful for us fans, but it is definitely a good problem to have and better than having all the other problems associated with not having a very good roster.
If things progress through the season as they are now and Bennett consistently plays at a higher level than Avril and Bruce Irvin becomes a beast, then I think Red will be asked to restructure or given an opportunity to play somewhere else. Yes, he is popular among the players and he is a good player, but there is only so much money to go around. Red has looked to be in probably his best shape and really doing well so far this year as well. Clemons, unless he has a horrible year..I think he will be here...he has all the pass rush skills but is also good against the run too. If he sucked against the run I think more of a case could be made to keep Bryant instead of him, but pass rush is critical and if they can fill that need and still be strong against the run then I think we can figure out pretty easily which way things will go.
just off the top of my head could see dline looking like
clem/bennett/mebane/avril with irvin in lb spot(interchangeable with bennett/clem/avril)
clem/red/mebane/bennett same caveat as above but just between irvin/clem/bennett
clem/red/mebane/avril that lb spot between irvin/clem/avril/bennett with bennett being able to slide into dt as well.
I am not much of an x and o's kind of guy but has anyone noticed when they have bennett at dt are they just sticking him only with red inside or with mebane inside or have they been mixing it up with who they have beside him.
I was thinking dt, the only one safe would be Mebane, but with the FO you never know, and we'll have to see how he plays throughout the year...but what if they made a dt decision and we had red but not mebane? does anyone think that could be a possibility, especially with as good as red has looked early in this season?
edit: and I was so into those main players I didn't even take into account Schofield(sP)
