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#25: ATH, Jabrill Peppers

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It's been a tale of two halves for snap counts. I wouldn't rely too heavily on the early portion of the season as representative of the load JP can handle. If you take his most recent 7 games, I think it shows someone thriving when asked to play a larger portion of defensive snaps.
You can certainly play him however much you'd like. My angle is more: is it worth investing in another starting-ish quality safety so that we can be more creative with him.
 
You can certainly play him however much you'd like. My angle is more: is it worth investing in another starting-ish quality safety so that we can be more creative with him.

I would agree. You see how explosive he is around the LOS. His coverage has looked better and he's getting around the ball more as a safety but that shouldn't be a reason to keep him away from the LOS, I think it is the opposite.

Find other coverage packages where you can keep him around the line, to support or rush while hawking TE's or pass catching RB's. Peppers is one of the few guys in the league that is athletic enough to cover the deep thirds of the field and physical enough to support the run at a high level and body / fight TE's in the passing game.

Given his versatility, I would imagine you would want him taking about 1/3rd of his snaps around the LOS, if you have a quality 3rd safety. Peppers allows you to effectively play nickel without sacrificing run support or an additional plus blitzer if you need it.
 
You can certainly play him however much you'd like. My angle is more: is it worth investing in another starting-ish quality safety so that we can be more creative with him.

Ah, understood. I thought you were talking about volume only. I agree with you.
 
You can certainly play him however much you'd like. My angle is more: is it worth investing in another starting-ish quality safety so that we can be more creative with him.

We have the 3rd starting quality safety in Kindred who isn't great, but could be a starter in the NFL and was for us.

Issue is Williams hasn't shown any creativity until Denver game on how to use Peppers. Its Pepper's first sack because it was the first time he was rushing the passer. We could go nickel or dime packages with Peppers and put him in the box as lb even on rushing downs because of Peppers ability to tackle. I wouldn't do it often as Pro lineman are much more skilled at getting out on lb's and blocking them than in college, but Gregg has not been nearly as creative with defense until Denver.

The last two plays he went all out blitz, plus he seemed to play our LB's a bit closer to the line to stop their running attack. Obviously missing Ward hurts, but not really as much since their receiving core sucks so much. The backup TE's were killing us, that is proof we need better OLB,
 
Need to keep him near the line of scrimmage. I think there will be more games like this if Gregggg can play him up near the action.
Generally I would agree but on that interception he was playing deep.
 
We have the 3rd starting quality safety in Kindred who isn't great, but could be a starter in the NFL and was for us.
So then my followup question would be: where would Kindred rank amongst starting NFL safeties? Bottom 3rd? Lower? Higher?

What if an above average starting safety became available, like Randall did? Is it worth the investment?
 


That's great. I've never actually watched him call a game before, and it was really cool seeing how animated he was -- high-fiving ordinary fans outside his window, bouncing all around the press box. Makes me like him even more as an announcer.
 
Peppers got a ton of hits last year. Not only did some not like him because of what school he went to, but he wasn't exactly playing top notch, or living up to his draft position.

But I've always liked em. Hes been great this season. Having Randall back there has to help him out a ton, he's got a ton of talent around him with Ward, Randall, Mitchell, etc.

This secondary is going to be scary good if they stay together and maybe add another piece. Defense is right there in terms of being elite.

So bummed they didn't go after Mack... He would have been the final big piece.
 
So then my followup question would be: where would Kindred rank amongst starting NFL safeties? Bottom 3rd? Lower? Higher?

What if an above average starting safety became available, like Randall did? Is it worth the investment?

Kindred is sitting at 82nd out of 85 Safeties on PFF with qualifying snap counts. While his coverage grade bests his run coverage grade, he's not above average in either category.
 
So then my followup question would be: where would Kindred rank amongst starting NFL safeties? Bottom 3rd? Lower? Higher?

What if an above average starting safety became available, like Randall did? Is it worth the investment?

Bottom half of starting safeties, but middle of the back as far as safeties in general.

Another starting quality safety? Unless its dirt cheap, not worth it, especially if its a strong safety. Might be nice to have a decent backup free safety. Its actually easier to play 3 safeties in a nickel and dime package when they are both free safeties because free safeties have better cover skills.

While Peppers has improved his cover skills, there really are not his strong suit at this point, thus you could move Randal over to dime back. That said, you could go Nickel with Peppers moving to linebacker in a nickel-monster packer giving you a very dime look with being slightly better against the run.
 
Kindred is sitting at 82nd out of 85 Safeties on PFF with qualifying snap counts. While his coverage grade bests his run coverage grade, he's not above average in either category.

That is a bit lower than I expected, but not allot. So 85 safeties tells me about 2.5 per a team, so only starters and hurt starter replacement in general. Kindred is a bad starting safety, but good enough to start. I wouldn't want to count on Kindred for too much, but he is a decent insurance policy to have. 11 teams didn't get a 3rd safety even graded, but out of the 21 3rd safeties graded (assuming no team had 4 graded safeties, Kindred was 18th.

Yeah, we probably could use another safety, but only if comes cheap.
 
This is why I find the idea that Gregg Williams does not develop players to be laughable.

There are absolutely legitimate questions about his scheme and ability to lead this team to a title. But he is a great developmental coach. Regardless of what the future holds, Gregg should be applauded for developing Peppers, Mitchell, Schobert, etc.
 

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