Who will be our starting LBers ?

[Chawker]

Brooks will be one of our starters.

Project the other starters for me.

 

[Pandion Haliaetus]

I’ll give starters and depth left to right:

LOLB: Nwosu, Mafe, Smith
ILB: Brooks, BBK, Muse
ILB: Barton, Iyiegbuniwe, Rhattigan
ROLB: Taylor, Robinson, (Smith)

I see them keeping 9-10 LBers/Edge.

Of my 4 starters, I think Barton is the most unappealing player to the casual fan but in my opinion he’s much more suited as an inside backer and in a contract year I think he’s going to bring it big time and make a name for himself. He’s not going to make us forget about Bobby but he’s going to be a lot better than most people think.

 

[Mase]

Same players, sightly different alignment.

ROLB Owonu
RILB Beooks
LILB Barton
LOLB Taylor

Assuming we don’t sign or trade for someone.

Mase

 

[toffee]

I am hoping Barton will somehow have a breakout year. He and Brooks could be the MLB for our future years. We are starting Brooks and Barton as MLB, who would be their backup and rotations?

 

[JerHawk81]

Mafe/Taylor. Plenty of upside here, but I'm nervous about either being asked to be a starter on day 1.
Brooks. Solid.
Barton. Below average, and pretty thin behind him. Lots of bodies there, but not a lot of potential.
Nwosu. We're sure paying him like an above average starter...

 

[Hawkspeed]

Here is a current depth chart of our front 7. There really are a lot of differences between 3-4 and 4-3 linebackers.

EDGE: Uchenna Nwosu, Darrell Taylor, Alex Tchangam
DT: Al Woods, Quinton Jefferson, Jarrod Hewitt
NT: Poona Ford, Byan Mone, Niles Scott
DT: Shelby Harris, L.J. Collier, Myles Adams
EDGE: Boye Mafe, Alton Robinson, Tyreke Smith
WLB: Jordyn Brooks, Jon Rhattigan, Ben Burr-Kirven
MLB: Cody Barton, Joel Iyiegbuniwe, Tanner Muse

In a 4-3 the middle linebacker is the star. The defensive plays try to direct things to their Mike tackling machine. Bobby Wagner is / was the king of middle linebackers, but his role would be different in the 3-4 scheme.

Now the Seahawks are built for speed on both outside EDGEs, but the players are not really like the linebackers in a 4-3. These are big, strong and fast athletes. I am impressed with the speed and potential for the pass rush of this years team.

The only true linebackers are inside Mike and Will. We have two good starters, but could still use some veteran experience like KJ Wright. He is tall and has a gift for "sniffing out" the screen pass.

BRING BACK KJ!!!

 

[Chawker]

The only true MLBers are Brooks, Rhattigan and BBK, Barton doesn't know sick'em from fetch'em and is seen running the wrong way on most plays.

 

[sdog1981]

is seen running the wrong way on most plays.

Do you have any proof of that? Because that will get you benched at the high school level and will get you cut at the pro level.

 

[Chawker]

Proof, hell ! If the coaches have the same tapes that I've seen. They just don't want to admit there mistake. Maybe Pete needs to cutback on thoughs afternoon naps.

 

[Maelstrom787]

Proof, hell ! If the coaches have the same tapes that I've seen. They just don't want to admit there mistake. Maybe Pete needs to cutback on thoughs afternoon naps.

Could you post a breakdown? I just don't see what you're seeing there.

 

[Scout]

Barton projected from college as a quality backup/low end starter so I suspect that is what he can possibly be. If he shows more than that projection that would be good.

Nwosu, Brooks and Taylor are the other starters.

Being able to bring pressure from a lot of places is going to help the back end a lot IMVHO.

 

[QuahHawk]

The only true MLBers are Brooks, Rhattigan and BBK, Barton doesn't know sick'em from fetch'em and is seen running the wrong way on most plays.

Wrong, I'm not ready to crown Cody a Above average starter, need to see what he has over a season, but he is legit NFL caliber player. Maybe bottom 1/4 of all ILB's but we will see.

 

[jlwaters1]

I'm interested to see what Joel Iyiegbuniwe brings to the table.. Can he compete with barton for the starting inside backer position?? I think we also make a roster move by training camp time to add more depth to the position. Hopefully BBK will be back and ready to contribute as well.

​

 

[AgentDib]

I also thought Barton played pretty well when he was taking over for Wagner in the Cards game. That made it easier for them to move on from Wagner's cap hit this season.

It's worth pointing out that in this kind of defense the starters are somewhat arbitrary. We're going to be rotating players in very heavily. It's possible that Woods could start but I'll wager that Jefferson will see more snaps. I'm expecting Ford to get a lot of snaps but think some will come at DE.