Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris Meck
yeah, I mean, I understand that, but if you're just going to get killed I'd rather at least get killed with the young athletic players who potentially learn as opposed to the guys who just can't get it done no matter what.
a blown coverage pisses me off way less than the Sorensen **** ups.
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For me the answer's easy - Bolton isn't someone who's going to get orders of magnitude more athletic. This is who he is athletically. So if you plan on him being your Mike long-term, you need him to be at least credible in coverage.
Well that's not gonna happen through getting faster. It can EASILY happen by getting smarter, though. And Bolton's a damn intuitive player - always has been going back to his Mizzou days (full disclosure: I've been a stan since his sophomore year when he took over for Terez Hall without missing a beat).
And the way that's going to happen is with reps. With his football savvy, it's going to come faster than some people think. We'd see substantial development there in-season, IMO.
So Bolton's a 3-down guy for me unless you're in a Dime or a 3rd and long. Gay is my other Nickel backer because he's such a unicorn athletically. Sure, he'll make some mistakes. He may ALWAYS make some mistakes. But he's a freak so you let him play through those.
Hitch becomes the base Sam in the same way Damien Wilson was last season. And to be completely honest, this team misses Damien Wilson in a big way. He was a damn solid player for us. If Bolton can replace what Hitchens gave us last season (when he was a good player) and you can shell game Hitchens into what Wilson gave us with Gay replacing Niemann's contributions (when he was actually fairly decent in 2020) then you have a damn nice LB corps.
It doesn't seem terribly complicated to me.