Julius Peppers or Dwight Freeney

I do wish, as "refined" as Rucker says his technique is (to the detriment of his game, IMO - his "wait for the right spot" mess might set up a sack now and again, but sometimes he just needs to get the best jump off the ball and outmuscle his tackle), he'd share some of that with Peppers. If Julius could fend off even just the first lunge into his body by the OT, he could probably have a lot more sacks. It's not like he lacks power to go with the speed, when he decides he's going inside he can push an OT back.

Which is why I reluctantly want to see him stand up more, and why I'm curious about Rucker at LDE again, to see if we can make that work. I'm guessing that, standing, Peppers would have an advantage and that his quick first step would be more effective.

 

Apples to Oranges, most don't think the way you do Collin, get over yourself.

You are the one wanting to compare Apples to Apples and you just can't do that, SINCE they both aren't used the exact same way or even close.

Now if you said just this year only, then I would agree, you know talking about 3 games. But when you look at everything that player does, well you are just plain wrong, no matter how you want to look at it.

If you want to compare Apples to Oranges, and compare ALL the stats and the way both players are used and can prove your point, then and only then get back to me.

 

Agreed, and as you said earlier, I wouldn't mind him being used as a LB and bring in another DE.

 

IMHO, the comparison isn't fair. Dungy is using Freeney in ways to get the most out of his abilities, and Trgovac/Fox isn't doing the same with Peppers. They haven't been coached the same or to do the same things. If Peppers was playing RDE, I'm fairly sure he'd be putting up the gaudy sack numbers we've expected from him all along. Or, if Trgovac/Sunseri limited his assignments to pass rush and backside run pursuit, he'd be blowing things up a lot more often.

But he still doesn't have consistent help from the SLB behind him if he over pursues or gets caught behind a misdirection play or screen. I think they're coaching Peppers to play conservative, because right now (and since his rookie year, really), he's the best athlete and best player on that side of the field. Both the SLB and SS positions have been highly inconsistent since '02.

Indy is a different story, though. Maybe the philosophy there is that their offense is so good, they can afford to take chances on defense for the sake of being aggressive and going for the big play, because Peyton & Co. can always put another TD or two on the board. That's definitely not the case in Carolina.

 

Here's a question... Why isn't Peppers as productive as Strahan? That's probably as apples-to-apples as we can get.

 

Actually they do. If you read those blurbs by scouts, coaches, and general managers; they all favor Freeney.

We didn't really start dropping Peppers into coverage more than a handful of times until late last season and then the first three games of this season. Even then, that's a difference of a few plays.

I already did, genius:
"Teams don't run as much on the Colts as they do against the Panthers, so Peppers is going to have a natural advantage there, although Julius is a slightly better run defender (still not above average in that respect). But if you want to talk about interceptions, then you might as well talk about turnovers as a whole. Peppers does have 3 INTs to Freeney's none, but Freeney has 18 fumbles forced to Peppers' 12. That means Freeney is causing more turnovers.

Sacks: Huge advantage for Freeney
Turnovers: Advantage for Freeney
Tackles: Advantage for Peppers"

 

RDEs face the left tackles, who are almost always the better pass blockers. We need to stop making excuses for Peppers and just accept the fact that he isn't playing up to his potential yet.

 

This is a interesting tidbit from INSIDER on sacks.I think is relevant to this topic since we're discussing two DE which primary job is to get sacks.

Sack masters: Phillip Wilson of the Indianapolis Star had some great stats in his story Wednesday about the problems sacks cause an offense. Colts coach Tony Dungy said in training camp that sacks kill drives. Wilson reports that league-wide there have been 211 sacks on 190 possessions. Offenses are scoring on only 14.7 percent of those drives. Sack-plagued drives have resulted in only 11 touchdowns and 14 field goals. The Colts lead the league with 13 sacks and they've given up only one field goal on drives in which the defense has recorded a sack. According to Wilson, sacks have forced 45 fumbles and caused 39 drives to end in turnovers

 

Freeney averages less than 4 more sacks a year. That is with playing more games. Tell me how that is a huge advantage. The huge advantage is in the amount of tackles Peppers leads by in those fewer games.

 

Yeah but sacks don't help us because we can't stop 3rd and long