Thomas or Chancellor?

After listening to Brock on "Blue42", I am kind of up in the air as to who I would consider the most important to the Seahawks Secondary by having a 100% comeback Season.
Kam will need to reestablish his Alpha Male dominance to the opposing Offenses, by making them pay the price for daring to catch balls anywhere in his vicinity.
Earl was playing through some injury last Season, and it dropped him in the Top 100 by quite a bit, but it's imperative that he be back to his old Pro-Bowl play, because I think Pete is going to be looking for him to cover the back end, and at a pace that I think only Earl can play up to.

Thomas to me is more important to the D and that is taking nothing away from Chancellor who is also important. Thomas' speed allows Chancellor's physicality as the single high safety. That ability to cover the whole deep zone with his speed is what allows the Hawks version of the C3 to work. Adding Browner as a role situational death backer will put pressure on the opposing TE seam routes and not allow the OLB to be beat down the seams of the C3 shell.

To me, Earl is the more important player. He didn't wow us as much last year, but he still filled a pretty unique role for us. He covers so much real estate that it's like having an extra half of a safety out there. With Sherm going mostly solo on the right side of the field, that's more or less the other half of a safety. That leaves Kam, or whoever, as almost a 12th player on the field. I love Kam. He's my favorite current Seahawk, but Earl Thomas is a special player. No one can do what he does.

Thomas is the most important person on the defense. No knock on Sherman or Chancellor but with all the media coverage about this subject, I have to say I agree with them. Thomas is the man and the reason that we can play the defense we do.

Earl is more important, but Kam's poopy play really hurt last year.

Chancellor may be the heart, but Thomas is the brains. His speed enables a lot to be done by the whole team, but his smarts is what matters most IMHO.

scutterhawk":1uj76977 said:

After listening to Brock on "Blue42", I am kind of up in the air as to who I would consider the most important to the Seahawks Secondary by having a 100% comeback Season.
Kam will need to reestablish his Alpha Male dominance to the opposing Offenses, by making them pay the price for daring to catch balls anywhere in his vicinity.
Earl was playing through some injury last Season, and it dropped him in the Top 100 by quite a bit, but it's imperative that he be back to his old Pro-Bowl play, because I think Pete is going to be looking for him to cover the back end, and at a pace that I think only Earl can play up to.

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Correct. Thomas allows it to be actually kept simple. Chancellor is a tone setter but those are far more replaceable then a player that can actually play the entire backend by himself when healthy. l just wish he didn't have hands of stone. If he didn't he'd be Troy Poluomo, Kenny Easley, Ronnie Lott level with a bullet. The man is the brain behind our defense. Chancellor is just among staff supporting the leader.

I'm thinking some of Y'all are spot on, Thomas wasn't 100% healthy for quite a lot of last Season, and it did seem to put a damper on their fundamental scheming, and also, McCray did an admirable job of filling in for Kam at times last Year.
I keep thinking of how nobody seemed to fear playing us last Season....Just hoping that Chancellor & Browner can catch fire, and get back to reclaiming a few souls :twisted:

Thomas was actually pretty clear on this one.

The answer is Chancellor.

According to him, Chancellor is the guy that tells a lot of the guys where they need to be.

Frankly, the loss of an effective/motivated Chancellor killed us last year - but it was pretty clear that both Thomas + Chancellor played hurt last year.

We need both, it isn't an either or. But Thomas, by his own admission, is not as effective a player without Kam.

So if you lose Kam you also lose a big piece of what makes Thomas great too.

It's a tie.

And I also read the same thing that Twisted mentioned...that Chancellor is a big part of the brains behind the defense.

Player health is relative. If you asked most football players, they haven't been "100%" since high school.

Thomas doesn't hold out or enter the season out of shape.
Chancellor can't make plays if he can't get to them.

I don't see how this is even a debate.

TwistedHusky":360nhca4 said:

Thomas was actually pretty clear on this one.

The answer is Chancellor.

According to him, Chancellor is the guy that tells a lot of the guys where they need to be.

Frankly, the loss of an effective/motivated Chancellor killed us last year - but it was pretty clear that both Thomas + Chancellor played hurt last year.

We need both, it isn't an either or. But Thomas, by his own admission, is not as effective a player without Kam.

So if you lose Kam you also lose a big piece of what makes Thomas great too.

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This was my thought going into this discussion, but I found that the answer wasn't so cut and dried.
If you delve into it a little deeper, you find that Thomas was playing with an injury, and with having to deal with a break in the continuity because the Kam Chancellor (*injury*)holdout.
Thomas tried to cover more of the back end, and let's be honest, the Coaches were trying to get creative with how best effectively use Sherman to help fill the void that was left by Kam.
The LOB was a support system that required that all the moving parts needed to be present, and functioning at a premium, and try as you will, there was no viable substitution.
There was nobody else in the LOB, or in the League for that matter, that covered sideline to sideline like Earl Thomas,
Chancellor laid the wood and struck fear into would be Receivers & TE's.
Sherman was a 'No Fly Zone', and Quarterbacks were left with a limited area to throw the ball, they just knew that their only hope was to take advantage of whoever was trying to defend the LC position.
I'm holding hope that Thomas & Chancellor are back to 100% (or thereabouts) healthy, because I believe that that's the reason for the drop off for most of last Season.

It's Earl and I'm not really sure it's all that close. The close second, IMO, is Bennett.

I would say Thomas is much more important. Chancellor's self-omission last year was glaring but only because we didn't have a very serviceable replacement.

sutz":3938xaoc said:

Chancellor may be the heart, but Thomas is the brains.

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Actually, to be accurate this might be exactly the opposite of true. Many times early last year Thomas made reference to Chancellor not being on the field making sure Earl knew assignments. There is an understanding between the two that Earl has free reign to fly around the field but Kam makes sure that he is doing so while not neglecting his assignments at the same time.

I just rematched the NE SB game and Kam was the least effective of the two S and allowed too many 2nd half big plays against the D including a huge play to Gronk. Of the 2 players he's the easier of the 2 to replace.

TwistedHusky":2ipx2vd7 said:

According to <Thomas>, Chancellor is the guy that tells a lot of the guys where they need to be.

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I had forgotten about this and it's a great point. I still think Thomas is the more important, but this makes it a lot closer in my opinion.

If you take both at their peak, it's Thomas. He covers up a lot of mistakes on the back end and has incredible range and instincts.

Chancellor makes more impact plays, at his peak. It's close between both of them, but Thomas is what makes this thing work.

Thomas is important because of his athletic ability where Kam it may be leadership, calls and setting the tone, this defense is a lot like a car with 4 tires, take away one and it doesn't roll as good, put the mini spare on and it will drive but you better get a replacement soon because going full speed is a risk.