My official endorsement for the 21st overall pick.

[Direckshun]

Originally Posted by Saccopoo

Justin Houston is enormous. His legs are the size of tree trunks. They ran him in a passing drill at the combine and you could see the ground shake. He didn't look very good out in space. There is no possible way he's going to have the fluidity and change of direction capability to effectively be a three down, standup strong side, outside linebacker in a 3-4 defense, and since we've already got a former 4-3 defensive end that was second in the league in sacks and first in forced fumbles, that's where Houston would have to play for the Chiefs. (Unless you want Hali to move over to the strong side to play Vrabel's position.)

I simply do not see Houston being effective in zone pass coverage that the position will demand a lot of the time.

The guy bulked up for the combine, came in at 270 lbs. and looks like he's positioning himself as a 4-3 defensive end.

You spoke of rolling out the offensive line in 2011 unchanged from 2010, saying that they were adequate for the task, but yet you still want to draft Houston while we have Studebaker and Sheffield on the roster with Stud getting more and more reps as the season progressed in 2010. At least to me, the OLB position seems to have better depth and developing experience than a number of other positions on the team.

To pick a guy that is going to be a project for a position that we already have a All-Pro level player at in his prime seems a bit redundant, especially considering that there are a number of positions that could stand an immediate upgrade. Drafting Hali's replacement now would be a bit silly.

Really good post.

I share your hesitation with Houston being unable to keep up with tight ends and the like. I do think if he rounded down a few pounds he'd be better suited to do so.

My question, though: do you think Hali has been a net positive or a net negative for the defense this year?

Your answer to that is my answer to this issue. Hali is pretty freaking lousy at dropping into coverage, but his passrushing makes everybody's life easier. Adding another amazing passrusher will have the same effect.

Especially when we do drop Hali, we'll at least know somebody else can get to the QB. When Hali dropped in 2010, we got bupkiss.

Regarding the offensive line...

I do believe our OL can hold together one more year, warts and all. I do not share that confidence with our OLB corps.

Hali -- All Pro

Vrabel -- purely mentor role, can do nothing on the field

Studebaker -- the OLB you guys seem to want, good at dropping and decent at playing the run, but is not a reliable passrusher

Sheffield -- huge question mark coming back from the injury

We definitely need help at the position, and if Houston drops to us we're lucky.