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Question for Jene... (1 Viewer)

chook

Footballguy
Below is from Coaches Corner a week or so ago...

(Yeremiah) Bell is no fluke. He should be reliable even with Kevin Jones out this week. If you want to swing for the fences with Reed here, though, this could be the week with Big Ben very mistake prone (even at home). Plenty of risk there, however.
Jene, you said that Bell was no fluke (and hindsight is a wonderful thing), however he has really stunk it up hard the past two weeks and is on the verge of being cut from my 25 man dynasty roster. A couple of weeks down the track, has his star potential fallen as far as his stats have? How would you see him as compared to say, a Daniel Bullocks?Furthermore, when Bullocks has started this season he's looked pretty solid to me (fantasy-wise terms anyway), but is relegated to the pine when Kennedy is healthy. With Kennoy signed through 2010, does Bullocks have the stud potential that some claimed after the Thanksgiving game?

Daniel Bullocks, SS, DET

This guy has the makings of a superstud in the works. He and fellow rookie Ernie Sims should be at the top of a lot of boxscores for Detroit for a long time to come.

-Jason Matheny, IDP Nation (Rotoworld)
Surely Bullocks starts next season, but would it most likely be in the FS or SS position?Sorry if this is a fairly broad question (or two), however I appreciate reading your comments on all IDP issues in here and hoped you could give me some insight.

Cheers.

 
I don't consider myself very knowledgable of these 2 teams and Jene is probobly a lot more familiar with these 2 players and thier situations than I am so take this for what its worth..

My impression of Bell is that he is a bit of a tweener Db. Not really physical enough to play safety and perhaps better suited to be a cornerback. Cornerback is a position that generaly takes longer for a player to adapt to and the better corners have some experience to draw on but it is always a position that gets tested by fire. Cornerbacks have to have short memories and not let mitakes they make get to thier self confidence while at the same time they have to learn from thier mistakes and keep making themselves better.

Bell like most rookie defensive backs is probobly better off playing nickle/dime packages and special teams right now while he learns more about playing at this level.

As far as Bullocks I don't know much about him either. He filled in for Kennedy at SS while Kennedy was injured. Right now nfl.com has him listed as the backup FS to Holt. Holt is a young promising player who has a lot of speed. Bullocks would have to be very outstanding to take Holts job imho. Kennedy is a traditional SS. He is a good tackler and useful in run support but is not that great in coverage. Kennedy brings some leadership and experience to the Lions defense as he has been a decent starter for most of his 7 years in the league. Kennedy is 29 years old right now. He is not so old that he needs to be replaced yet at this point. I don't know his contract status but I don't see Bullocks starting over either of these guys in the near future unless he is really special. He did however play pretty well while Kennedy was injured and got some valuable experience.

So contract status on Kennedy and more background information on Bullocks is what you should be looking into to determine when Bullocks might be able to start.

Defensive backs from the lions will continue to put up good numbers as long as thier linebackers continue to have problems. It has been my observation that for the Lions the FS is typicly the better performer than the SS and I am pretty sure that when looking at the historical numbers it bears that out. New Coach and scheme could change that moving forward but for some reason the Lions FS has ushualy the better player to have.

 
First, Biabreakable is being humble. He knows things.

Good points on Bell, but many of those points sound like Jason Allen's future, not Bell's. Bell's a third year guy who's been stuck on the second team for a couple seasons now despite playing pretty well in limited opportunity. He's one of those guys whose scouting report doesn't inspire you but somehow always looks the part on the field. He's not going to confused for an in-the-box safety and he doesn't have the recovery speed and man coverage skills that are probably necessary in a scheme like Saban's, but he always seems to be around the ball.

Hindsight can make some of your prognostications look pretty poor but you sure better not ignore it or you'll never learn very much. Feel free to call us out and question things like this. Although I thought Bell would have a decent game even without Kevin Jones in the lineup two weeks ago, I should've been more cautious about that recommendation. Ten rushing attempts and six underneath passing plays to backs and tight ends won't provide many opportunities for a SS. This week's effort is the one that'll take some explaining. I didn't see this week's games and there's no reports of an injury (minor or otherwise) in the local news outlets, which doesn't leave an easy excuse for a 0-1-0 performance against a 31 rush performance by the Jags. No Tillman in the gamebook, although Jason Allen does show up with a 3-0-0 -- that could be as an injury replacement as the Jags don't run many multiple WR sets, especially when ahead the majority of the game.

In a perfect gameplan, Saban would like his safeties to be interchangeable. Like the Belichick 3-4 hybrids, though, one of the two safeties are likely to be a little more active in run support. It's hard to say who that will be as Renaldo Hill is a solid run supporter, too. The reason I felt Bell would have value in the short term is his tendency to be around the ball in coverage (six passes defended in his first three games starting after four in limited time earlier in the year). Those numbers can make up for some scheme limitations and having Holliday, Thomas, and Crowder in front.

I'm still fairly bullish on Bell, though, but if there's no injury explanation for this week's stinker it's obviously time to take him off the must start list and consider matchups.

I like Daniel Bullocks as a player. But, as Biabreakable pointed out, he's got some things working against him in the long-term. First, he's not likely to play SS with Kenoy Kennedy signed there and clearly the man Marinelli wants in the job given his quick insertion into the lineup without a sniff of rotation as soon as he's returned to health in two separate cases. After drafting him, the Lions stated they wanted him in the FS role. I don't know what's changed here. Bullocks covers just as well as Terrence Holt and I've no idea why that guy is still playing.

I'll grant that Bullocks looked like a stud in that Thanksgiving game. While much of that was Bullocks' talent, you cannot discount the fact that the Lions have no interior defensive linemen right now and a bunch of junk at MLB. The SS and WLB are always going to benefit from the pursuit opportunities that occur with that. I'm still waiting for a little more game data to collate to make any kind of worthwhile conclusion about the effect of the Tampa-2 scheme on safety play, but a safety with a lot of Cover-2 responsibilities in a fairly vanilla form of the T2 is probably not going to near enough to the LOS in most cases to generate good numbers of tackles.

I'm a fan of just about anybody that writes about IDP, but IMO Matheny is still learning. He and I had some discussions in this Forum last year about positional responsibility and scheme. I think he's overrating Bullocks based on that Thanksgiving game. I think Bullocks has solid DB2 upside as a SS, but when Rogers/Cody return he's probably looking at the 5-6 solo tackle numbers Kennedy was putting up in Week 1. Those are nice, but not uber-stud (Wilson, Rhodes, etc) quality. If he ends up landing at FS (which is a very reasonable possibility) or the Lions finally get a decent MLB behind those huge DTs, he's going to struggle to put up DB2 numbers.

I think the underlying point here, though, is this. I've been harping on it a bit, but Biabreakable, redman, Rozelle and others have pointed it out too. You cannot trust that the SS is the better IDP player in today's NFL landscape. Too many hybrid 3-4s, Tampa-2, and base defensive packages that warrant a solid cover safety. You have to consider the scheme and what a particular safety is asked to do in it. There are going to be guys like Bob Sanders, who have such ridiculous talent that they can overcome some of those limitations. But, for the most part, be wary of a guy with DB1 talent whose responsibilities hurt his opportunity.

 
Thanks heaps to both of you guys. Brilliant insight as always, which is why i just subscribed to the site - seems the only right thing to do.

And before I say anything else, I really wasn't tryingn to call you out Jene, just looking for a more detailed reasoning behind your comments two weeks ago. That quote from Matheny I posted was actually from his 'Start or Sit' column, in which he recommended to start Bullocks this week, even though Kennedy was returning.

I read nothing into his suggestions, however as you stated it is good to read anything IDP, so I do.

Agreed, the FS can be a more productive position than the SS depending on the situation and I think with my playoffs hopes dashed, I might look for someone with the right situation in next years' draft rather than depend on carrying either Bullocks or Bell until then. With Gaither getting the start today and not playing all that badly, his potential is worth more of a spot on my roster than the aforementioned two, even though in a different position.

For the record, I too missed the Dolphins game (well it wasn't shown here in Australia, only a few highlights on Sportscenter), however I kept up with the play-by-play on NFL.com. Bell recorded his assist deep into the game, so nothing to do with an early injury from what I saw... err... read.

Again, thanks a lot for your help guys.

 
well it wasn't shown here in Australia

:eek:

FF in Australia and IDP no less .... COOL! :thumbup:
Cheers, I've been at this fantasy thing for around a decade now.Very much of a rarity here though. Nobody else could be bothered waking up 3am Mondays to check on game-time decisons each week. Actually, most wouldn't even know the game exists! Although I did see another Aussie in the Shark Pool recently.

 
well it wasn't shown here in Australia

:eek:

FF in Australia and IDP no less .... COOL! :thumbup:
Cheers, I've been at this fantasy thing for around a decade now.Very much of a rarity here though. Nobody else could be bothered waking up 3am Mondays to check on game-time decisons each week. Actually, most wouldn't even know the game exists! Although I did see another Aussie in the Shark Pool recently.
3AM ... what a trooper!!!Lets see ... what are you 15-16 hours ahead of us down there? What time does the Monday nite game come on and can you watch it live?

 
MNF is TAF (Tuesday afternoon football) for me. I can watch it because I have a satellite. A 1pm Sunday game, a 4:15pm game (both Fox), Sunday night football & the aforementioned MNF. I also get Thanksgiving games and these Thursday night (friday afternoon) games, plus the Saturday games once they start taking place.

 
Denmark here, we're 6 hours ahead which is why I'm a walking dead every monday morning during the football season. Been this way for a long time, my GF hates it that I spend my sunday nights on the couch :D

 

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