The PPE and decisions...

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by Tribal Warfare

If they can't trade him that's the issue since he's a bad fit for the 4-3 scheme.

I think he's a really good fit at Leo.

Ford was not a stud against the run this year, but he was solid; firmly average to my eyes. Especially on runs away from him; his pursuit speed is so good that running to the opposite side doesn't work well against him at all. So you have to run weakside to attack him and that just takes a blocker out of the equation. Traditionally offenses tend to have the LT focus on pass-blocking with their RTs being more run-blocking specialists, so the LTs (unless they're elite) tend to excel a little less against the run, also helping Ford out a bit. The biggest concern that then creates is whether Hitchens can effectively man the middle.

Because he'll have to if you have Ford and DoD at the Leo and Will respectively. Not a lot of mass over there and so power running will lead to them getting swallowed up a bit. You'll need Hitchens and your SS charging in hard in the hopes that DoD and Ford can occupy blockers well enough to create lanes for the other guys to knife into.

The 4-3 under may actually be perfect for Ford, to be honest. My biggest worry is that he hasn't shown the ability to rush off the right side of the formation nearly as well for some strange reason. If that's a bugaboo, then yeah - we need to move him. But it's just more of a perception and/or sample size issue, I think he'll do well over there.