A.A.D.Q.: Can Turk McBride Hack it?

That sucks. I never was a fan, but hate to see anyone get hurt (well, besides Rodney Harrison :)).

If they start Sims I pity them. Getting blown up will be an everyday thang.

While we are on the subject of the defensive line, I would like to point out a sad situation. Our former DT, James Reed, likely suffered a career ending injury. Though he was never a great player, he did start for us during our playoff run in 2006, when we had the miserable Ryan Sims sucking space on our roster. BTW, I saw that Sims was starting during the first preseason game (via NFL Network endless reruns), but that he kept getting blown up by a 6th round rookie right guard. From Rotoworld:

"Saints placed DT James Reed on injured reserve, ending his season.
Reed suffered a torn Achilles in training camp, and it could very well end his career. Reed was nearly out of football before signing last week.
Source: New Orleans Times-Picayune"

I'm glad this finally happened. I've been saying all along that I thought putting Boone at DE was Herm's way of lighting a fire under Turk, and it looks like it worked.

CMF - good thoughts about the extra positives of his losing weight and them seeing if he's capable of playing end. He actually looked better than I expected against the run. He's still over sized for an end and his power helps him get separation from the RT.

As far as Boone back at DT, I'd have to go back and look, but I think I saw him line up there in a couple of passing situations and he looked pretty good. I don't know that for sure though.

I'm hoping that Turk develops into more of the 'starter' at end, but I think the Boone experiment has produced good results.

I don't really think we need Boone to switch back to tackle, in fact, I think we're better off with him as an end in the running situations. With Tank and Dorsey inside, we'll be plenty set at tackle, and we can use Ron Edwards in the rotation. Maybe try sending Boone at tackle for obvious passing downs, but I don't even think that'll be necessary and with him in at end for running situations, he'll need the rest on those passing downs.

I would love to see turk outside and boone back in....just because boone has lost weight doesn't mean that he loses his ability. Sure you might lose some ability to stuff the run, but I would give that up for an improved pash rush up the middle.

Turk and Tank also are just 2nd year linemen. I think towards the end of this year and next year is when we expect consistently good things from them, if not great. It just takes that time to get use to the NFL IMO. Thats why everyone has us at the bottom of the league right now....hopefully we can speed up the learning curve a little bit!

I expected more from Turk last year being a second round pick and all.

I like the move because I think Boone will do better playing as a tackle. He did well last year in the middle. He and Dorsey could hold it down if the Ends do well.

I was actually pretty happy with Boone's LDE performance on the running plays. He can really stuff those outside runs at the end position, and I think that will be huge when we play against SD and LT tries making it off tackle. Obviously, he has difficulty with generating a good pass rush from the end spot, so Turk becomes the guy you rotate in on passing downs and against teams that are more oriented towards passing, a la week 1 at NE.

I would like to see Boone back inside, but I agree with xxxlp on this one. he has dropped weight and the question is how effective would he be at DT now. We may look back on his move to DE as a mistake. Time will tell.

i agree boone belongs in the middle hes not a DE i like mcbrde at de thats where he belongs

I think part of the Boone experiment on the end was two-fold. First they've been after Boone to lose some weight anyway, and its possible they used playing on the end as a carrot to get him to do so. Second, it was a chance to see how well he can play out there if needed. I think he's passable there if necessary.

Turk needs to get left out there for the rest of the pre-season to see if he can get his sea legs. I think the kid's made of the right stuff, he's just got a... shall we say... steep learning curve. But I think he can grow in the job if we just leave him out there awhile. Last year he couldn't get enough reps to learn anything with Jared and Tamba ahead of him.

This is a positive sign. Also, Tank has been getting some good props. The development of the TNT show is going to be very important this year.

I just think if we are going with the youth movement then we need to see if our early draft picks can play.

Yes but don't forget Boone has dropped some weight and has become faster. It also means he loses some leverage against the 'fatties' up front. Aka he will probably become weaker against the run than he was, if he's moved back to DT; a la Warren Sapp. Sapp was a beast against the run until he dropped all the weight, then looked like Ryan Sims out there. Ideally Tank/Bruiser would be our best DT tandem, as both are very solid against the run, they both command double teams, and yet Dorsey is still able to consistently get hard pressure up the middle. If Tank can keep improving, and keep his weight down, then we'll be set at DT for a long, long time.

I think that fact that they wanted to put Boone on the outside at first tells you how good it will be when he goes back to the inside. You pair him up with Dorsey, and we might have a good set of quick, penetrating DT's for passing situations. We are still thin at DE, but it would make our DT situation one of the better ones in the NFL.

Right now, my biggest worry is that middle linebacker spot. Not sure how we are going to get good play there, especially if we remove Napolean Harris. And please, enough with the Donnie Edwards in the middle business. At this point, Donnie is not an every down player; rotating with DeMorrio Williams will help him on the strong side.

I would very much like to see Turk succeed at RDE. Who wouldn't? That would free up Boone to go back inside where he plays best.