AJ Klein (1 Viewer)

[9thwardsaint]

I been seeing lately all the negative reviews regarding AJ Klein namely PFF and Bleacher report. To me, Klein passes the “eye test”. I don’t breakdown film but as a traditional fan, my “eye test” consist of how many times I cuss out a player and scream at the tv while watching the game. Lol. PJ Williams was top of my list last year.

Can someone make a case on how Klein played so poorly? Maybe Rev can do some breakdowns for us, which I love by the way. Thanks Rev for all that you do.

 

[ASaintFerLife]

I like Klein and think there is potential.

 

[Taker597]

When the defense gelled. His only real skill was play calling, communicating, and getting players in position. After he went down, we had a plethora of communication issues and mental lapses.

He isn't a playmaker or a great player, but he made players around perform better as a unit.

 

[sammymvpknight]

When the defense gelled. His only real skill was play calling, communicating, and getting players in position. After he went down, we had a plethora of communication issues and mental lapses.

He isn't a playmaker or a great player, but he made players around perform better as a unit.

I thought the defense regressed more due to Okafor being injured. I felt the LB corps actually improved after Teo and Robertson got inserted into the lineup. I expect Davis to be MLB this year, and he’ll be directing traffic. If the Saints were confident in Klein’s ability to be MLB, they don’t sign Davis. Klein has the best shot to start at SLB and we are relatively weak at the position...but we typically prefer to have nickel packages over 4-3 anyway, so Klein probably won’t be on the field a ton.

 

[Swimmer]

When the defense gelled. His only real skill was play calling, communicating, and getting players in position. After he went down, we had a plethora of communication issues and mental lapses.

He isn't a playmaker or a great player, but he made players around perform better as a unit.

You said it perfect Taker. Apparently he is one of those players who makes all the players around him better. I think he's got good Combine type numbers, but he didn't play to the level I was hoping. I am real curious to see how he progresses this year. However, it's clear that DA and SP want an athletically capable disruptor in the LBs. Deon Jones is the model. I hope Davis can continue his play making skills for us this. If he does, that's a major step forward for our defense.

I just got finished reading an article by a couple of analysts. It drove home the point that the elite defenses had a disruptor at all 3 levels of the defense: DL, LBs and DBs. It was an interesting article. We have Latt and Marcus Williams both as disruptors to check off the DB box. Cam has the DL box checked flush for us. I am hoping Davis or Anzalone can fill the LB box for us.

 

[ELLIASJWILLIAMS]

If Davis is who the Saints think he is he should take over playcalling lining guys up duties sooner than later. If that's Kleins biggest trait then it's not a good one...his play also needs to back it up and Klein missed a lot of plays last year that could have been game changing along with not grading very well.

Saints like to take chances on ascending players and Klein looked like a player who could do that if given a chance to be a starter but I think it's pretty egregious that up until his injury he'd played a little under 100% of the snaps and still finished with a low tackle count. There were guys playing fewer snaps out pacing him in that department. Some guys ascend like Keenan Lewis did some are better as backups and Klein to me is good depth/spot starter like he showed in Carolina. He is who he is.

With that being said Davis showed a similar ability to make adjustments at the LOS that everyone is pumping up about Klein except he showed an ability to make plays in the run/pass game along with it. He also showed an ability to be the only LB on the field in some 6DB packages and that translates well to what we do with our multiple DB packages. Meanwhile Anzalone is a more rangy guy than Klein so in a perfect world you likely WANT both as your starting LB's but a lot depends on Anzalones ability to stay healthy...that will be the major sticking point.

Robertson/Teo/Klein isn't a bad 2nd team of LB's and neither is Robertson/Teo/Kikaha....but either way I think Klein will have plenty of time in TC to prove he can cement it and yet I don't think it's all the way his just yet.

 

[9thwardsaint]

You said it perfect Taker. Apparently he is one of those players who makes all the players around him better. I think he's got good Combine type numbers, but he didn't play to the level I was hoping. I am real curious to see how he progresses this year. However, it's clear that DA and SP want an athletically capable disruptor in the LBs. Deon Jones is the model. I hope Davis can continue his play making skills for us this. If he does, that's a major step forward for our defense.

I just got finished reading an article by a couple of analysts. It drove home the point that the elite defenses had a disruptor at all 3 levels of the defense: DL, LBs and DBs. It was an interesting article. We have Latt and Marcus Williams both as disruptors to check off the DB box. Cam has the DL box checked flush for us. I am hoping Davis or Anzalone can fill the LB box for us.

I get what your email saying swimmer but I thought Klein was pretty disruptive especially blitzing through the A gap. I guess it just wasn’t consistent enough. I thought Robertson played well minus a few mental lapses. Teo balled out of his mind.

 

[bobad]

Klein needs to up his game. Presently, I don't think he's among our top 3 LB's. He's decent depth, just like he was in CAR.

 

[Swimmer]

I get what your email saying swimmer but I thought Klein was pretty disruptive especially blitzing through the A gap. I guess it just wasn’t consistent enough. I thought Robertson played well minus a few mental lapses. Teo balled out of his mind.

I agree with you 9thwardsain. If I had never heard those low PFF scores, I would not be worried about Klein. I thought he did pretty well on the field, but those numbers got in the back of my mind and they won't go away

 

[dutar76]

In 12 games, Klein had 54 tackles combined (solo and assists). That's an average of 4.5 per game or 72 over a 16 game period. To put that into perspective, only playing 47% of our defensive snaps, Te'o had 62 and Craig Robertson had 80. Demario Davis had 135 combined tackles for the Jets last season. Heck, Stephone Anthony had over 100 his rookie season as our MLB.

So there's the biggest reason for the knocks on Klein. Another thing, as I think Ellias is alluding to... Klein had multiple opportunities to make a game changing play but failed to do so. I think the number of passes that bounced off his hands were in the double-digits and there were several fumbles that he should've recovered as well. So even with the low tackle #'s, he had plenty of chances to redeem himself by simply making the play.

There is one more thing to consider, though I'm not sure if it's a big deal or not... Klein played SAM linebacker in our base 4-3 last season and slid over to MLB in nickel. So that could've give him some mis-leading #'s at least to some extent. And nobody can argue that he had our defense lined up correctly and made good pre-snap changes. For the 12 games that he wore the headset, our defense was ready and set better than it had been for years.

This year, it's possible that he's the full time SAM which I've heard is his most natural position. He could very possibly be all we could ask for at that position. If so, he'll still need to cash in some splash plays to keep the boo-birds away. If not (or maybe even if so), his new knock will be that we're over-paying for a 2-down LB.

 

[BooBirdSaint]

I don't want to hate on Klein but we sure gave up a ton of running plays over 40yds last season. Had it not been for the one or two missed gashes in the run game the Defense would have looked even better. I put those big gainers on the LBrs epically the MLB. And to be fair Teo and Roberson gave some up also.

 

[SAINTSISK10]

I'm glad this thread was started. I didn't really hear one bad thing about klein until the offseason which confused me. During the season I felt nervous about the upcoming games when Klein was injured because I felt he was one of our top defenders.

 

[RJ in Lafayette]

He seems limited as an athlete. I did not see him make many big plays; in fact, I saw him fail to make big plays that could have been made. He looks like a player who can be a marginal starter and who certainly provides quality depth. We will find out this year. But we have had in recent years several substantial free-agent signings where we needed badly to fill a position and seemingly overpaid. At this time, I put Klein in that category.

 

[dutar76]

I don't want to hate on Klein but we sure gave up a ton of running plays over 40yds last season. Had it not been for the one or two missed gashes in the run game the Defense would have looked even better. I put those big gainers on the LBrs epically the MLB. And to be fair Teo and Roberson gave some up also.

Agreed. The few explanations I've found for those big gash runs on us in the first half of the seasons (Rev Deuce, Underhill, etc...) have said the DL did it's job and that one or other of the LBs did not. As most of them were against our base defense, that doesn't narrow it down much as to which LB or LBs were to blame, since Klein, Te'o, and Robertson were all on the field.
Regardless, our Saints went out and got a LB in Demario Davis who played lights out last year. You could temper expectations somewhat since 2017 was the only year that he played at that level. I'm not going to do that. He sustained that level of play for the entire season, grading out as the #8 LB in the league overall per PFF. That doesn't seem fluky to me.

For the most part, we have a group of versatile LBs, that could come in handy if guys miss games due to injury. But as we've seen with players like Peat, Vaccaro, Kelemete, Rankins, and to some extent PJ Williams, being moved around the line-up can benefit the team, but not so much for the player. So if Klein is left at SAM, maybe his play, numbers, and grades improve. Just a thought.

 

[sammymvpknight]

I'm glad this thread was started. I didn't really hear one bad thing about klein until the offseason which confused me. During the season I felt nervous about the upcoming games when Klein was injured because I felt he was one of our top defenders.

I think many of us were optimistic that he’d start doing SOMETHING...it just never happened.

The Saints took a chance on a young ascending talent...and it probably didn’t pay off. It’s ok though..,they didn’t break the bank on him and you have to do a fair bit of speculation how someone will fit into your system. I think that Klein was helped being surrounded by excellence in the Panthers LB Corp and also benefited from a small sample size. Davis on the other hand was NOT surrounded by a great cast in NY, and has a much larger sample size. I’m much more confident in his acquisition. My only concern with Davis is that he’s now 29 years old. I think it’s very reasonable to expect some sort of decline over the next few seasons...but hopefully it’s not this season.