Peanut Tillman (1 Viewer)

[Jiggyonthehut]

Well in all honesty, I did not watch any of the Bears' preseason games but upon going to their offical MB, I found nothing but negative remarks about how his coverage skills fared in both games. Oh and not to mention the highlight where he was hosed by Mike Turner. The following reactions to his play were summarized as follows:

Plays way too far off the LOS. Giving up too many short routes because he doesnt have the speed to line up on the WR.

Drafted as a very physical CB. The new contact rules go against his strength and now he has to rely on his *weak* coverage skills.

He is being targeted by opposing defenses and not comming through. He should be moved to a safety position (FS) that would allow him to utilize his phyisicality. Ricky Manning Jr. has far superior coverage skills and should end up a starting CB

I fully expect Manning Jr. to win the starting job.

Based on the way he has played this offseason, Danieal Manning has a chance to beat out Harris at FS.

Can anyone adress these rumors/allegations? What does this do to Tillman's current value and what role do you see him taking this season and in the future?As someone who will be relying heavily on cover-2 DB's (Clements, Tillman) this season, I am concerned about his prospects.

 

[My Ditka]

Call me crazy, but all of those things seem to me to be positive for his fantasy value.

There is a reason why Champ Bailey is useless in fantasy.......

Just my $.02

SMD

 

[Jiggyonthehut]

Call me crazy, but all of those things seem to me to be positive for his fantasy value.There is a reason why Champ Bailey is useless in fantasy.......Just my $.02SMD

Understood why. But how long before he gets his starting job yanked due to poor play/better player?

 

[cracKer]

How far we've come since he made that play on Randy Moss a couple of years back.

All in all, the dude produces huge when on the field (fantasy)and we need him to remain a starting cornerback to retain the value that he brings.

 

[Jene Bramel]

Well in all honesty, I did not watch any of the Bears' preseason games but upon going to their offical MB, I found nothing but negative remarks about how his coverage skills fared in both games. Oh and not to mention the highlight where he was hosed by Mike Turner. The following reactions to his play were summarized as follows:

Plays way too far off the LOS. Giving up too many short routes because he doesnt have the speed to line up on the WR.

Drafted as a very physical CB. The new contact rules go against his strength and now he has to rely on his *weak* coverage skills.

He is being targeted by opposing defenses and not comming through. He should be moved to a safety position (FS) that would allow him to utilize his phyisicality. Ricky Manning Jr. has far superior coverage skills and should end up a starting CB

I fully expect Manning Jr. to win the starting job.

Based on the way he has played this offseason, Danieal Manning has a chance to beat out Harris at FS.

Can anyone adress these rumors/allegations? What does this do to Tillman's current value and what role do you see him taking this season and in the future?As someone who will be relying heavily on cover-2 DB's (Clements, Tillman) this season, I am concerned about his prospects.

Charles Tillman isn't a top shelf cover corner. Few are. And he's taken the brunt of criticism for the industrial sized can of whoop- Steve Smith laid on the Bears last season. Tillman's future may be a safety, but his skill set is perfect for the Tampa-2 system. He can play press coverage but has the ball skills (nine INT and 33 passes defended in 36 games) to play the soft and intermediate zones. He doesn't need elite speed and he doesn't need to routinely line up in press or bump coverage on the outside receiver in this scheme. Even in Lovie Smith's aggressive Tampa-2, he will not often be left on the island and the deep zone along the sideline is a shared responsibility. It's also a weakness of the scheme. When the defense gets beat there it's the fault of mulitple players -- the corner, the play side safety, and the linemen that failed to generate a pass rush.More importantly, the difference between Tillman's physical run support capability (Michael Turner's ownage aside) and pass rush capability and that of Manning Jr is significant and important. IMO, if they wanted Manning as the starter, they'd have moved Tillman already. With Brown out for the forseeable future, you're still not hearing anything about a potential move.And Danieal Manning will be the starting FS at some point this season. If Brown is lost long term, the time is now. If he isn't, well, the time may well be now anyway.

 

[Rozelle]

With the cover 2 being a "bend but don't break defense, I don't think there is too much to be concerned about here, in respect to Tillman.

My understand is: Cover 2 is vunerable in the middle of the field between the safety's. When attacking this defense, basically QB's force the saftey's to make a decision in coverage, in terms of the outside or middle and react on their read of the saftey. (This may be why we are seeing the increasing numbers by TE's.)

So ... for the safety, things may not be quite as bad as it looks. Is this accurate Jean?

 

[Jene Bramel]

With the cover 2 being a "bend but don't break defense, I don't think there is too much to be concerned about here, in respect to Tillman. My understand is: Cover 2 is vunerable in the middle of the field between the safety's. When attacking this defense, basically QB's force the saftey's to make a decision in coverage, in terms of the outside or middle and react on their read of the saftey. (This may be why we are seeing the increasing numbers by TE's.)So ... for the safety, things may not be quite as bad as it looks. Is this accurate Jean?

There are more details (and graphics) in the Tampa-2 IDP primer posted a couple of weeks back but the short version goes like this. The traditional Cover-2 was vulnerable behind the corners along the sidelines and in the deep middle because of the size of the zone the deep safeties were responsible for. As times changed (read: bigger, quicker WR, multiple WR set, west coast offense), offensive gameplans made this defense more or less useless as a base set.Dungy tweaked the Cover-2 to drop the MLB back in coverage to hedge the deep middle zone and give the safeties a cushion to help get to the sidelines. There are problems with this too, though. High powered offenses, particularly those with solid TE, can overload one side of the defense with pass patterns and make it near impossible to cover them all. Also, more aggressive forms of the Tampa-2 (those that blitz LBs and cheat safeties in run support like Lovie Smith's version always has) are also going to have some of the same issues the original Cover-2 scheme did. So...yeah, I've started to think that the Tampa-2 may not be as bad for safety IDP production as it may look on paper. But only in one or two situations. One -- the talented two-way safety that can quickly diagnose and fill in run support and recover quickly in coverage with the ball skills to dent the boxscore. Two -- a safety with a decent skill set (some combo of a good blitzer, good ball skills, good run stuffer) that plays in an aggressive scheme. For now, that means Bear safeties. We'll see how it goes this year as our Tampa-2 sample size goes through the roof, but my working hypothesis is that the Donte Whitners and Darren Sharpers (two-way players) and Mike Browns (or best Chicago safety du jour) outproduce the Kenoy Kennedys and Dwight Smiths and Jermaine Phillips.Definitely a big situation for me this season.