Who's your #1?

As with all injuries, I agree Ryan will have his looked at hard. He did have a hamstring tendon graft done rather than a patellar tendon graft, which usually is better for an athlete, but it does sometimes affect strength in the hamstring.

Kendricks, duhhhhhhh.

If we're replacing DJ, he's the only option that I can see. Seriously, go listen to his interviews and you'll completely understand what I mean.

AJ Johnson looked really slow on a blitz vs Ole Miss, Qb had no problem getting away from him. He's too slow for my tastes.

He's had that mark on him up until this year, after spending the year training with the DB groups and their strength and conditioning coaches and assistants. He's not blazing fast this year, but there is a noticeable difference this year. Furthermore, the guy is like crushing his position right now with consistent tackles, its almost alarming. This could be that guy here in a month or two that we're talking about that improved his pre-combine draft stock to round 1 or 2, bumping a few others down.

That being said, I don't think he's the guy to replace DJ.

Bendardrick McKinney.

/thread

He's not the worst option, but he's not the guy to replace DJ specifically in this draft.

I'd be stoked for McKinney/Kendricks combination draft though.

Kendricks is a very nice player, but I'm not sure how his size is going to effectively translate to a 34 alignment at the next level.

McKinney has great length and size while still maintaining crazy athleticism.

Both are having terrific seasons, but if I had to choose for this team, I'd go with McKinney.

Personally, I would have rather have had them draft Kyle Van Noy last season specifically for this situation. He was a DJ clone at the college level.

Eh, there's much debate about the new "era" of 3-4 coverage backers nowadays with the almost compounding additions to the passing attacks in the "new" NFL, the old prototype sizes and metrics are all but gone, giving way to the potential for the league to be overran with smaller, lighter framed guys. Personally I'm not a huge fan of that notion, but its almost a guaranteed "thing" at some point. Kind of like guys talking about bulking Berry up to play linebacker in some of the threads this year. He could do it, but why? He's the best SS in the league when he's healthy, and with DJ there, anything extra beside him is wasted talent at that level. But I find its going to be paramount that we get an intelligent young linebacker in there to replace DJ who can be a surefire coverage guy FIRST, and tackler second. Can McKinney be that guy? I'm not sure. I can't seem to find much for interviews with the guy where they talk about "Football smart" concepts, and that could end up being super important going into this draft if a guy like Kendricks performs well at the combine, because you know he's got the football smarts and IQ to handle being the defensive signal caller, but the question for Kendricks is a little bulk.

I wouldn't rule McKinney out though, I mentioned him in the other thread as one of my three Linebackers that I'd take to shore up the middle, and at the moment I don't know if Denzel is truly "the guy" the transitions best into the NFL for that role, so I left him out of there.

I don't see the "crazy athleticism" in McKinney.

Looks more like a thumper. He's massive. That's not going to replace DJ.

Here's a rare occurrence where we both agree on a player. LMAO

He's extremely athletic.

He's effective dropping into coverage as well as rushing the pocket.

Quite versatile.

He's going to put up some pretty solid combine numbers.

We need to plant some film in this thread and break it down.