Change the roster or change the scheme?

[goodlay]

I see this off-season in terms of personnel moves, very similar to last year. I really think we should just re-tool that whole Defensive line, similar to what we did last year with the Offensive line. Brayton and Kemo I think deserve starting spots again, while Lewis and Taylor can be rotational guys. Trade Peppers, get a 1st, draft a Kris Jenkins type DT, and put Johnson on the other end spot.

[carpanfan96]

A little insight into Ron Meeks via this excerpt from a Gantt story with quotes from Eugene Robinson...

Herald Online

Adaptability is generally good, and has been something of a weak point under John Fox.

On the flipside, there's the school of thought that says the way to win is to get a system you believe in and then find the right players to run that system. This is the approach that teams like the Steelers prefer. In this mindset, the machine is what matter. Players serve as "parts", and parts can be replaced if needed. Might seem stubborn and/or dispassionate, but it must be admitted that the results offer solid evidence in their favor.

So which of these approaches would you advocate for the Panthers?

A) Build the system and plug in the right players

Get good players and build the system around them

I think we already have most of this in place, I think we might be one player or two players short of having the players in place to build a nice quality system we could use for years. Mainly if peppers walks, were short one or two DE's and a DT, we could just fill in around the rest of the line and have a rotation similar to what we had when we had one of the best dlines in the league. 7-8 players deep all of them quality players.

Johnson, brayton, lewis, kemo, New DT, New DE, taylor, another Draft pick at DE. Would be a quality rotation IMO.

[Jackofalltrades]

Don't think we really have to change the personnel even if we do implement a pure Cover 2.

[panthers55]

As other have said you first need a scheme that maximizes what you have since you can't make wholesale changes overnight. Plus you bring in people throuugh free agency and the draft to fit holes, replace players who leave and upgrade where you can. But what Meeks also needs to do is adapt what the team does if his players change for example through injury. If we are playing more man for example because Gamble is good at that but gets injured, we need to plug in the next guy who may have a different skill set and adapt to take advantage of what he does the best.

Add to that gameplanning to take away what the other team wants to do. For example teams had good success this year playing bump and run against TO who we may face if he stays with Dallas. Teams that played off him suffered. Teams that doubled Fitzgerald had much better success than we did for example letting him run wild both games.

If Meeks can do that then he will give us something we haven't had under Trgo. A guy who can use what he has to their best ability and adapt to what he needs to do from week to week to limit the opposition. Now if he can only find someone to help the line get pressure and confuse opposing offenses, we could have the makings of a great defense.

[Snake]

We tried A so maybe we will give B a shot. Im still not sold on Meeks but I hope the outcome is good.

[Mr. Scot]

One thing: I think we're reading too much into it to say that there's no chance we'll see DBs playing 10 yards off this season. The article said that was the way Buchanan preferred to play, and that Meeks incorporated that fact into his scheme.

At this point, I doubt we can say with any certainty what the preferences of our DBs are. We can infer, given that he's more effective playing bump and run, that Ken Lucas might like to line up closer to the line.

Still, that'd be inference, not evidence. With Gamble and Marshall, we don't even have that.

Best we can say is that we might see that change if that's what the DBs themselves prefer.

Not a lock, mind you, but I'll grant it's better than nothing.