Top Ten NFL Defensive Lines

http://www.foxsports.com/nfl/gallery/nf ... nts-080916

You look at some of the teams on this list, and it reinforces what's on Baalke's mind 24/7:

"GET TO WILSON".

:mrgreen:

I wish that I were knowledgeable about the mechanics of DL play. To me, I look at these lines and I don't see the nuance involved with attacking a particular type of offensive front (or blocking scheme) that others might.

How much of this is targeted drafting based on division or conference matchups and how much of it is just picking the best athlete that matches your scheme?

Getting to Wilson seems to be as much about discipline as athleticism to me. Be curious to hear from some of our former DL or OL players around here. How much of it is personnel and how much of it is coaching?

Wilson dictates what a D line can do IF and I say big IF our interior O line can hold up. If a DE comes hard off the edge he will roll around you and either run or dunk a pass or throw deep, you then have to be able to operate in space and tackle him or he gets his 10 plus yards up the sideline or in a seam and slides. If the DE is caught in space or no mans land then a Pass play happens. It starts in the middle and that's why I think they want the Center to be stout and our Guards and willing to go with good enough with Tackles.

I'm surprised the Cardinals aren't on the list. I'd definitely put them ahead of the Giants and Patriots.

For the Rams, it just kind of happened naturally over time. Our 3 first round picks still on the D line - Quinn/Brockers/Donald - were acquired under different circumstances. Quinn was by far the BPA at the pick we got him (he fell due to a brain tumor). Brockers we traded back to get - came out very young and we allowed Dallas to trade up to get Morris Claiborne, falling all the way to 14 - we dodged both the Claiborne and Blackmon bullets on that one. Brockers was a HUGE need because we were destroyed by the run for YEARS.

As for Donald - the coaches were stunned that he was still on the board. It would seem that Donald would be the piece that would help us contain/get to Russell Wilson, but we've only had him two out of the 4 years that Wilson has been in the league, and our most dominating game (from a defensive line standpoint) was the Monday night game that we lost 14-9 to Seattle - Donald wasn't even on the team yet. That the Seahawks somehow won that game told me they'd be winning the superbowl that year.

The scary thing about our pass rush is that Robert Quinn was not himself last year...if he can regain his dominant form along with Donald...should be fun to watch.

But until our offense improves to below average - it's been so bad that would still be an improvement - it won't matter how good our defensive line is.

I don't love this list, because to me there are only a handful of DL in the league who are capable of dictating a game on a regular basis, certainly fewer than 10 of them. So to me, mentioning New England or Philly in the same breath as the Rams, or Panthers is a waste of time.

It's also pretty silly that Arizona didn't make the top 10 especially after adding Chandler Jones. Even before adding Jones, the Cardinals DL was only a shade below the Jets in Football Outsiders metrics.