Quote:
Originally Posted by Couch-Potato
I'm asking genuinely, do we need a NT? C Jones is doubled more than any player in the league other than A Donald, and he might retire soon. If C Jones is getting the double teams, isn't he sort of acting as the NT freeing up a second D-linemen?
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Thanks for clarifying.
Spags largely runs his D-Line in a 1-gap scheme with Over/Under shifts depending on what the offense is presenting: Over if plus wide, Under if plus boundary. He'll stack LBs against 21 if the FB eliminates the plus else have them aligned to the strength.
So that said, no, you don't need to have a beast of a NT that has 2-gap responsibility down after down.
With that, however, when he runs an Under front, he's asking his NT to hold up against the strength of the formation to the boundary side, and a guy like Kancey might not be able to do that even if it's more likely that he's going against an outside zone run concept than power.
Ideally, the DTs in Spag's defense have the ability to play both 3T and 1T in either alignment. Obviously, Chris Jones is a great differentiator but the point stands.
Guys like Kancey, Ojomo, Stills, Lacy, and so on are great rotational pieces in the type of defense that Spags runs in order to give speed on obvious pass downs. Aaron Donald is a rare undersized but insanely strong dude with incredible disruptive capability. Kancey might be able to be that guy but I don't think he has the same strength that Aaron Donald has or had coming out. He's a guy you'd usually play as the 3T and move him to account for it, much like the Chiefs do with Jones, rather than asking your DTs to just switch up alignments.
Don't get me wrong, I like Kancey, but if the Chiefs are intent on keeping Jones beyond 2023, he has diminishing value early in the draft. Kancey is too talented to fall to day 3 where the Chiefs would find more value in him as a rotational piece. You can likely get Ojomo, Stills, and Lacy in that half of the draft though.