Marvin49":3p7kwik7 said:
My guess is Brooks is gone after the year so next years starting 4 will likely be...
Aldon Smith, Navorro Bowman, Patrick Willis, Aaron Lynch
...and Borland the first guy off bench and heir apparent for Willis.
Agreed about Brooks being gone, but I'm a cantankerous jerk in this thread apparently ( :lol: ), and totally disagree about Borland being the heir apparent to Willis, or Borland softening the blow of the loss of Willis.
I think the major issue that people have evaluating 9ers ILBs is that they don't differentiate between the "Mike" backer and the "Jack" backer.
The basic story is that "Mike" plays on the strong side of the formation, and ends up getting more stats, whereas as the "Jack" backer actually has a harder job, and is more frequently required to play in coverage, correctly diagnose formations, and protect the back side of the formation. Another way to think about it is that "Mike" is basically just assigned to the RB, whereas the "Jack" is playing more in concert with the rest of the defense.
For Willis' first four years he played "Mike" (the ILB job that's easier but piles up tackles) and everyone thought he was All World.
Because he was a better (and more multi-faceted) LB Fangio moved him to "Jack" and slotted Bowman into the "Mike." Suddenly Bowman was piling up the stats and people mistakenly even started believing that he was better than Willis.
This year for the first few games Willis moved back to the "Mike" and his stats ballooned, but Willhoite couldn't handle the "Jack" so they swapped, and then for a few games it looked like Willis had disappeared and Willhoite was actually pretty good.
Since Borland has been in Willhoite has moved back over to the "Jack", and Borland is eating up all the stats in the "Mike" role (and people mistakenly think Wilhoite has disappeared).
SOOOOO.....
Borland, IMO, is too slow, too short, and too stiff in the hips to ever be an heir apparent to Willis. He'll never be a "Jack" backer, IMO. He's very promising in the "Mike" role though.
A better way to think about it IMO is that Bowman is the heir apparent to Willis and Borland is the heir apparent to Bowman. Or put another way, once Willis is gone and Bowman slots over too many people will mistakenly believe that Borland is a better ILB than Bowman.
(also worth saying that with Willis and Bowman the 9ers have stumbled into a pretty good thing: Willis gets more money and Bowman gets more glory).