Nick Fairely
ratliff came from the same school and is actually an inch shorter than fairley.
ratliff also never made the kind of noise that fairley is currently at auburn and also never played NT in college from what i can remember.
to be fair to carriker the guy was a very outstanding player at DE in a 4-3 at nebraska and he also tore it up at the senior bowl that i watched in 2007. the rams in their infinite wisdom moved him to DT for some reason and now he plays in washington in a 3-4. many of the guys that you mentioned earlier failed because of being drafted to the wrong scheme or had their pro skills over-estimated like jimmy kennedy. kennedy was never as explosive as fairley and never had fairley's level of hand usage to dispose of blockers.
not too many nosetackles like ratliff get picked late in the draft. good run-stoppers can be found later like sione fouha but hitting on a guy like ratliff that can both stop the run and rush the passer at NT late is so rare that he's literally the only NT of the past 10 years or so that i can think of that has even done it. finding Ratliff also required a great deal of luck because he was not even drafted to be a NT, he was drafted to be a 5-technique.
NT's in college that are known to have fairley's type of explosion, hand use, quickness and ability to get after the qb historically have gone high in the draft and some have even done prettty well like darrell russell, sean gilbert, dan wilkerson, and eric swann.
http://gosh darnedyanks.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/gilbert-sean.jpg?w=200&h=250
all of those guys were drafted top 10 and made pro bowls or all pro teams. granted all those guys were about 20lbs heaver but we have seen guys like fairley in ratliff who have had a great deal of success.
ratliff came from the same school and is actually an inch shorter than fairley.
ratliff also never made the kind of noise that fairley is currently at auburn and also never played NT in college from what i can remember.
to be fair to carriker the guy was a very outstanding player at DE in a 4-3 at nebraska and he also tore it up at the senior bowl that i watched in 2007. the rams in their infinite wisdom moved him to DT for some reason and now he plays in washington in a 3-4. many of the guys that you mentioned earlier failed because of being drafted to the wrong scheme or had their pro skills over-estimated like jimmy kennedy. kennedy was never as explosive as fairley and never had fairley's level of hand usage to dispose of blockers.
not too many nosetackles like ratliff get picked late in the draft. good run-stoppers can be found later like sione fouha but hitting on a guy like ratliff that can both stop the run and rush the passer at NT late is so rare that he's literally the only NT of the past 10 years or so that i can think of that has even done it. finding Ratliff also required a great deal of luck because he was not even drafted to be a NT, he was drafted to be a 5-technique.
NT's in college that are known to have fairley's type of explosion, hand use, quickness and ability to get after the qb historically have gone high in the draft and some have even done prettty well like darrell russell, sean gilbert, dan wilkerson, and eric swann.
http://gosh darnedyanks.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/gilbert-sean.jpg?w=200&h=250all of those guys were drafted top 10 and made pro bowls or all pro teams. granted all those guys were about 20lbs heaver but we have seen guys like fairley in ratliff who have had a great deal of success.