Should we give up next year's first to move up in the draft?

LSSpam said
Bruschi, and not really Vrabel, were never big "play makers" though. And they didn't have Ty Law for their best defensive years.

By the same token, the great Dungy defenses didn't have Simeon Rice, and no CB could ever be called a "playmaker" for a Tampa-2 defense. It was largely Sapp and Brooks, and to a lesser extent Lynch.

The great 1999 Bucs defense you're thinking of had Chidi Ahanotu, Marcus Jones, and Brad Culpepper starting on that defensive line with Warren Sapp :shrug:

The 2000 Ravens had Boulware and Ray Lewis, sure. It also had Michael McCray and Rob Burnett at DE and Sam Adams and Tony Siragusa at DT.

You appear to be really overrating how much talent it takes to have a good, even World-beating defense.

To reiterate, we had the #12 defense in 2006 with not a whole lot. And we made it to the NFC Championship game.

I get your point, and maybe I am making it more difficult to be a dominant defense thn it actually is, but I don't think I am. I do think that dominant D's requires 3 to 4 playmakers. I have given in on the point with Chi-Town that we don't need to be a dominant D to win big, just a top 10, but I think it has to be a long term thing because you never know when the time will be just right to actually win. How many years did the Colts have a dominant offense and a decent D and not go?

Just for clarity, the year that Gruden led them to a SB, Rice was there. But yes, he was a late addition. I do consider Barber a playmaker on that team, I understand your point about Tampa-2 CBs, because really they are not covering man to man and it's more a "center fielder" mentality. However, he did make a lot of plays and I consider him a playmaker on that D.

I do think that Bruschi has been a playmaker on that team for some time... Vrabel I might see an argument on, but there were so many on that team, those were just off the cuff. Law was there for the first two of the SBs they won.

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