We found a diamond in the rough with this kid. Great story and I think he'll be a fan favorite for years
I knew this post would jack you up.. in fact, while typing it up I thought to myself, WWDJD ("What would DJ Do?")
We have not even scratched the surface of what McCain can do, in my honest opinion. The coaching staff has a bug up their butt about him playing linebacker, even though he was both consistent and impactful as a linebacker all through the preseason. They put Philip Wheeler, Jason Trusnik and then Jonathen Freeny in front of him at linebacker. That's a real thing that actually happened and I don't understand it at all. They've gotten enamoured with this idea of McCain as their situational obvious passing down right end. He found a way to get a sack there, which is evidence of his being a very good player. However if you really tracked snap-for-snap on those pass rush downs, Nate Solder generally handled him and sometimes alarmingly easy. I mean, the dude only weighs like 240 lbs or something like that. And in college he was not strong as a down rusher, and I don't expect him to be strong as a down rusher in the pros, either. On the sack it looked to me like Solder forgot that he was facing a guy that is pure speed. He should have set to the outside and relied on his frame, strength and ability to mirror in order to adjust if McCain went inside of him. Bottom line is if you want to get the absolute best you can out of this guy, you've got to play him as Wheeler's replacement. Then you can blitz him. He's a fantastic blitzer. If you want to play with him as a situational down rusher in nickel, when he would normally come off the field anyway...sure you can do that. But Dion Jordan is vying for that role as well.
Call me crazy but I see this kid as the next coming of Cam Wake. When Wake is ready to hang it up, he'd be a perfect replacement(if he keeps playing like he did on Sunday). I'd like to know if he's athletic enough to play the "Jack/Rover" position JT played during the Saban era, the role we've been trying to get Dion Jordan to play. Jordan hasn't shown anything the past two camps. McCain comes in and tears s*** up. I'm going to put my money on McCain developing ahead of Jordan.
One of the best debut performances I've ever seen from a rookie defensive player. Especially one that went undrafted.
I was thinking today that we haven't had a dominant linebacker since Zach Thomas. Unless you want to count JT in the 3-4 but he wasn't a true LB.
Dansby and Porter did ok for us. Were they dominant? At times. I miss seeing ZT giving us consistent dominant performances.
I can't wait until the coaches have enough confidence in him to make him a starter. He has more natural ability than any LB now on the roster. I know he is still learning the defense and that he will make rookie mistakes, but to me, he is the one player on this team that can best fill the role Jordan was drafted for. Right now McCain appears to have more upside than Jordan.
How was he in coverage and against the run? It's clear that he can make plays and is good rushing the passer. I wonder if he is a liability in those other areas? Either way, I'm excited to see him develop. I love players like him who have passion, a chip on their shoulder and have something to prove. You couldn't ask for a better debut from a rookie. Let alone an undrafted rookie free agent.
That design of rifle with the loop lever was first made famous by John Wayne, either when he was in the original Stagecoach, or about that point in his career. Model 92 Winchester. Most likely either in .44/40 or .38/40. What's funny is that rifle was not manufactured until 1892, yet we see it often in westerns set at an earlier time. Such as True Grit.
Yeah right? I mean the baby squid nickname for OV made me want to , but this YKY nickname is a definite
That's who he is. McCain has a similar skill set to Derrick Rodgers. An undersized college speed rushing DE at Az State, whom Jimmy converted to Will backer.
He is great playing space. Backside pursuit, and being in chase mode. I do not want to see him as a base Sam. I don't think he has enough sand in his pants to play head up on an inline Y and hold the point. This guy is not Carl Banks and never will be.
Really depends on how he physically develops, he can get by on speed for now, league adjust to that rather quickly
Far too soon to say that. He'd need to get a whole lot stronger first. I really don't expect we'll ever see another Wake. The closest thing to him on the roster right now though is OV.
But Rodgers rarely made plays for us. He was a good run stuffer though. As for my comparison of McCain to Wake, am I jumping the gun? Absolutely. Do I care? No.
For some reason I never understood, Jimmy very seldom used Rodgers as a pass rusher, like in the nickel. He had other options he liked better I suppose, like JT and Trace. In Rodgers' senior season at Az State, he was about as good a college pass rusher as you'd ever hope to see. Then in the NFL, seldom got the chance. You have no reason to care that you're jumping the gun on your CMac to Cam comparison. We're all entitled to our own opinions.
I don't know who I'd compare McCain to, but I think he's pretty firmly an edge technique rush player. He's further along as a linebacker than a lot of guys coming out of college, but putting him at linebacker in the base package would be a bit of a waste unless the 3-4 elements are going to continue. They've got his use pretty well pegged for the short-term, I think. Line him up in as wide a technique as the formation allows and let him get upfield in obvious passing situations.
Maybe he just didn't fit the scheme, I'm not sure. I remember Rodger being a very solid, unheralded player during that time, but one who didn't make a lot of plays. Just did alot of stuff that doesn't show up on the boxscore. Sort of like a much better version of Koa Misi.
I do not agree with that even one little bit. He'd be just as effective as the Will in the 4-3 as in a 3-4. CMac is totally an every down defender, and the sooner the coaches make him a starter, the better. The way Trusnik moved into the Mike so seamlessly for Misi, I am wondering now if a base starting alignment of Misi at Sam, Trusnik at Mike, and CMac at Will would be the most effective.
I like Diehard a kazillion times better than YKY as a nick for CMac. But when it comes to nicks, I'm all about lowering the number of key strokes when typing the name, as long as the nickname makes some sense to most observers. Can you imagine some new forum member reading El Padre and be sitting there scratching their head, wondering YKY???? WTF????
Based on Kevin Coyle's PC today and what I've seen in games, Miami's got McCain playing as a SAM in their system. That said, they play their "WILL" on the strong side of the formation quite a bit as it's more of a coverage LB spot against tight ends as we saw with Kevin Burnett in 2012 and Dannell Ellerbe this year. Philip Wheeler was there in 2013 and was not a fit. I'm bullish on him playing better this year as the SAM LB on the LOS. Guess we'll see. I think if Misi and Wheeler are healthy moving forward, you'd probably see Jelani Jenkins taking over for Ellerbe, Misi in the middle and Wheeler at SAM. I think you can keep Trusnik as the main backup at MIKE and SAM, and still develop Jordan Tripp in the middle. I'm not really sure where Kelvin Sheppard fits in as I think he'd always been an inside guy while at LSU and Buffalo; not sure how the Colts had used him.
I guess Coyle likes his speed LBs to play SAM. Thats why Wheeler wasn't a fit, he's more of a WILL. I think McCain is a WILL too.
You've got it backwards. Miami plays their "WILL" linebacker, who is their coverage backer on the TE side so he can cover. They run a lot of over fronts so that Wake can be on the open side of the formation as the left end, even if he's on the strong side. Miami in 2012 played their bigger players, the closed end (Odrick) and SAM LB (Misi) on the weakside as it's matchup-based. The theory being you have fewer, but bigger guys on the weak side and smaller, athletic players on the strongside, but you have 1 extra defender over there as the MLB is flowing that way on the snap most of the time. Last year they tried to do the same thing with Olivier Vernon and he couldn't do it so they ended up playing a lot more under fronts to mask is deficiency. It worked because Cameron Wake is just that good, though his run defense took a small dip as he's matched up with a RT and a TE most of the time. That's why I think the coaching staff wants to bulk up Dion Jordan so he can eventually play where Vernon is as a bigger end, with very good athleticism, so it provides a more favorable matchup to Wake. Obviously we saw what happens (yesterday's game) when they do that. The results are good.
If Dion Jordan overtakes Olivier Vernon as a 3-down starter, you still play Olivier Vernon at defensive end. He may not be a "starter", but you can play him as part of the rotation and play him when they go to nickel and other sub-packages when you move Dion Jordan around as a spy, matchup player, etc. Though, if Olivier Vernon keeps playing like he did Sunday, Dion Jordan at his current rate of progression probably won't catch him. Sadly. I think that may be especially true in the eyes of the coaching staff as Vernon seems like the guy coaches LOVE to coach. Dion Jordan on the other hand...probably not as much. I think Jordan played the run in preseason about as well as Vernon has and did yesterday, but he REALLY needs to improve his pass-rush. Ultimately, I think if it worked out to that point where you play Jordan over Vernon, it's still a situation like Seattle had last year where you can just keep rotating guys in to keep others fresh. It'd almost be like Miami's defensive tackle rotation. IIRC looking at PFF, Jared Odrick had 68 snaps, Mitchell had 47, and Starks had 45.
I've said this before , but OV came into the league as a twenty year old , heck we draft 24 year old rookies and they are older than him . I don't see he is a rotational player , sure he will get breathers and such but don't see him as the player getting those breather snaps from a starter. He's too good right now and still developing and emerging. I liked him when we drafted him , thought his best was ahead of him and that he made plays around the line of scrimmage. He also hits hard , he's a violent young man and has really emerged as a rush player. I see we played a 5 dline a fair bit yesterday and that may solve some issues for getting our better players on the field at the same time. I like a lot of our personnel , think McCain has a huge upside and think Jordan is better as that type of player , for a quick reference a couple of JT99's , not sure we transition to a set 3 - 4 , or just be very fluid and use our players to our advantage and exploit situations. Did you hear if Jordan has "hired" JT for his ban time? I know he said he was hiring someone and JT said he offered to mentor him.
I still think our personnel fits a 3/4 front much better. I know we utilize it on some looks but I don't think the 4-3 is the best use of the talent we have on there, even with Solia gone.
McCain has pretty good linebacker skills all things considered, but the position in this defense is a chase/coverage position. It isn't an attacking, forward moving position, at least from a base defense standpoint.
I'm not disagreeing with any of what you've said re: Olivier Vernon. I did say "If" at the very beginning. That's a big if as of now, and it'll continue to get bigger if Olivier Vernon keeps playing like he did against the Patriots. I don't think Dion Jordan hired Jason Taylor and I've not noticed if he's hired anyone at all while he's suspended. Hopefully he does. My argument is *IF* he does develop like I think he can, I don't think he's as far off from surpassing Olivier Vernon as many people think he is. It's just that pass-rush is the most important part of that, and that's where Jordan has the most work to do. And by most I mean an awful lot.
Ro, Vern is a legitimate 23 year old NFL caliber defensive end, he's 6'2 265 lbs and he's as strong as a fu@&in bull, his game is overall good right now and I don't know if you've noticed, but he's adding moves to the repertoire, (the spin move was a ridiculous athletic movement) you do not demote this kind of ascending player for anyone on this team, especially if the other guy has the skillset to play a more natural position..that's the bottom line, you don't hope to replace this guy,
Thing is, both OV and DJ are top 11 defenders when it comes to talent level and skill set, and the goal should be how to get them both as many snaps as possible. So, move DJ to Sam. No more tall athletic TEs getting a free release when DJ is lined up on their nose.
