Brown shifts to the right side

[OneBadassCat]

Its pretty simple. If Brown isn't better than Johnson or Brayton then he shouldn't start, and you can't expect him to outplay those guys right away, especially Johnson who looks to be coming into his own and Brayton for that matter who played very well for us. But there is no doubt Brown is going to help us on 3rd down, and honestly thats where we need him most is 3rd pass rush. I'd be fine with Brown being a situational guy this season, we have a good rotation of guys who are not push overs. Our guys can already handle the run pretty well, pass rush is where Brown is going to really help us, starter or not.

[MadHatter]

With Pep back, we will have a rotation of Peppers, Johnson, Brayton, and Brown....I can definitely live with that.

We can go small on passing downs by bringing in Brown and sliding Brayton into DT with Lewis.

Mark my words....the defense will be back this year.

[panthers55]

THe thing is that Brown starting for this year would mean we have a pretty sucky D line. Why? Because few if any rookie D linemen reach 10 sacks in a season. Since Peppers did it in 2002, there have been 2 other guys who did it. Last year Chris Long was drafted top 5 and he had 4 sacks.

Unless Brown is much better than most people who passed on him thought he was, then he won't get half a dozen sacks this year if he started and played every game. It doesn't mean he won't be a force in a few years but right now, probably not.

So we have to hope that Peppers returns and get another 14 or 15 on the right side while Johnson, Brayton or some combination elevate their game and contribute another 14 sacks from the other side.

Brown could surely help and might even get a few sacks, which would be great. And I could be wrong and Brown could be the next coming of the annointed one. But most likely he will be a force in 2010 not 2009. As such he needs to sit the bench and learn the game. Then when he ready, come in and contribute.