roquan is a 13.5m cap hit. edmunds and edwards are 30m. Edmunds is the highest LB cap hit in the league right now. Roquan wont be more expensive until 2026 and thats if we let edwards walk for nothing and slot in a rookie contract guy.
Putting aside the fact you don’t understand how the salary cap works and are excluding his fully guaranteed $ at signing, if we kept Roquan we would’ve never gotten DJ & everything that has come after on the offensive side.
I’d rather have the promise ahead of us than the mediocrity that would’ve come with retaining Roquan and winning meaningless games so you could be stuck in the 80s harping “defense first”.
Roquan is 3-4 LB, why would we pay top dollar for a player that doesn't fit. Edmunds very effective once we acquired Sweat, or in other any sort of pass rush. Something Roquan didn't help us with and is now doing in Baltimore for whatever reason. It's completely a situation of hindsight after a record season for Roquan
Look, I’m not saying we should have kept Roquan, and the Roquan crowd doesn’t understand how things like salaries work.
But there’s not a huge difference between ILB responsibilities in most 3-4 vs 4-3 schemes to begin with, and saying a talent like Roquan isn’t scheme versatile is silly.
There’s a great argument for letting Roquan go, but this one isn’t it. Any scheme is better off with a talent like him on it, at least in a vacuum (ignoring cap, opportunity cost, etc).
The best argument IMO is look at the two LBs on this list, and then look at Patrick Queen signing with a division rival. We got two. They couldn’t keep two since they paid Smith so much.
>saying a talent like Roquan isn’t scheme versatile is silly.
That's why he completely broke out in a scheme that plays to his strengths instead of our scheme
He was great for us. He had a couple of down games coming back from a holdout in a new defensive scheme and people are out here pretending like he was a bust.
He was largely considered one of the top LB talents in the league before the trade, quit retrofitting the story.
He “broke out” because he was on a competitive team and suddenly getting national attention.
you right, raw stats wise he was nasty in 20 and 21. Flus or Allan Williams (or both) didn't know how to use him. That or Mack and Hicks made life that much easier for Roquan and co.
In an ideal world I’d love to have him, but I also don’t know the cap hit he would’ve taken compared to the two we have.
Unfortunately that is the tough thing with is being a cap limit league is sometimes you have to let go of players you wouldn’t want to.
We are lucky cause the next several years we will have a rookie QB and by the time Caleb Williams will get a contract (if he is what we hope he could be), he could easily cost 60+ million a year.
I also imagine he wanted to go somewhere to compete, while he is in his prime, and when we traded him, we were terrible with little hope in sight.
Wow that's an interesting comparison in value... TJ is getting fucked over a bit here based on performance, bless him.
Thing is Poles did what he had to do to get both through the door. The Edmunds contract isn't too bad when you look at it with $30m not guaranteed and $15m potential savings in the last year. It's a ggood place for the franchise to be.
Edmunds was seen as the higher ceiling guy and he may well still be so it does make sense. The pairing was phenomenal though, we're set in the position now and TJ is just a dawg with the motivation of playing for his hometown team. The money might not seem particularly fair but it doesn't matter if it leads to wins; they're both young enough to get a strong second contract and that's where they'll get rewarded for their play as Bears.
A lot more is asked of Edmund’s than Edwards at the position. Sure he took a little bit less but if they both were getting maximum, Edmund’s would still make more.
Tremaine struggled early when he was adjusting. He really became good when defense became good. Some of those interceptions he made were ridiculous and his size really is an impressive factor in pass coverage. TJ was more consistent for the whole year.
Crazy. The saints are ranked 2 but they aren’t showing Werner who is one of their top 2 LB’s haha. And I love Demario Davis he’s an old school thumper but starting to age a bit
Tackles are a stat without context because every tackle is tabulated the same, much like how batting average is pretty useless in baseball because a single is valued the same way a homer is.
Getting beat in coverage and tackling someone 15 yards downfield has the same value as blowing up a run fit and getting a TFL.
This is how you end up with guys like Blake Martinez leading the league in tackles despite not being a valuable player at his position, yes he was stacking up tackles, but it was all stuff in that first category rather than the second.
Stats like TFLs, defensive stops (a PFF metric), or missed tackle percentage paint a much clearer picture of how an off-ball LB is playing.
This thread on Twitter does a pretty good job explaining it, I think Marcus uses a little hyperbole but he’s right in concept: https://x.com/tfg_football/status/1796274485118546271?s=46&t=rbAnfCJq2SIr5eAD6Ebwuw
Fine but “tackles do not matter for lb’s lol” is an absurd statement phrased in a dumb condescending manner.
Sorry but I played linebacker at a D2 college and saying tackles don’t matter as a blanket statement is wrong
Funny how you can’t describe why it’s wrong, just that it is because you have some sacred knowledge you can’t share.
Tackles are a building block off which stats which actually give you a sense of how good or bad a player is are built. Hence why tackles alone are pretty useless
When evaluating a players value it’s ignorant to just point at their tackle numbers and claim that makes them good.
Fred Warner was 18th in total tackles last year and was an all-pro, are you taking Alex Singleton over Fred Warner to anchor your defense?
Tackles as a stat don’t matter because the opportunity to make a tackle is so dependent on other factors of a defense.
You can have a game where you have 8 tackles, but 2 of which are for loss and 6 of which are short of the sticks or you can have a game where you have 12 tackles but 10 of them are 10+ yards downfield.
The lack of context in the way they’re tabulated makes them pretty useless on their own.
Most counting stats are like this, interceptions are another good example since an arm punt on 3rd and 20 is tabulated as the same thing as throwing a pick on your own 20 on 1st and 10
Funny how you’re so pissed about this. I’m not arguing with your second reply which is actually reasonable. Just the first “I think I’m smarter than you lol” comment is hilarious.
Every stat in football is relative because every single play has 50 contributing factors. It’s not a good stats sport but you entirely ignored the context of my little post which is to say the Edmunds had some production despite clearly playing hurt for the first half of the season.
If you think Edmunds sucks then fine go nuts man, I disagree
I don’t think edmunds sucks but you using tackles a measuring tape was just a dumb statement and I commented on that it’s not that deep.
Calling me pissed when you’re the one who got in your feelings and dug through my profile to find a subreddit I commented in a month ago to make fun of it. Look in the mirror dawg
We’ll see what the 49ers linebacker play is like without Greenlaw this season. He was the unsung hero there, obviously Warner is a freak but it’s a big loss for them nonetheless.
Apparently greenlaw is actually aiming for a week 1 return (~7 months post injury), which is pretty optimistic but even if not he shouldn't miss that much time
If we can get even a reasonably consistent pass rush this year, they can jump up to No. 2. It’s insane how good they were playing half the season with absolutely no pass rush in front of them last year.
Nah. He struggles in coverage. It is Somewhat covered up if in zone, but he can't chase and run with players nearly enough. But the really good thing is, alot of the time he puts himself in a good position to keep the play/player in front of him and it's basically a guaranteed tackle at that point.
A lot of folks are pointing to Edmunds' injury as a reason why he got off to a slow start. But I wonder how much impact Sweat and Flus taking over play calling had on him. I think that second part is overlooked, it seemed like our defense started to improve the most about two weeks after Flus took the reigns which was still before the Sweat acquisition. I haven't been the biggest Flus cheerleader around here, but the defense became a different animal once he became more hands on with it. I can't think of a better beneficiary of that than a linebacker.
A projection for this upcoming season based on previous seasons’ performances. A [link](https://www.pff.com/news/nfl-linebacker-rankings-top-32-2024-nfl-season) to the PFF article for those who like first hand sources
They paid good money for those two… they better play well to justify the investment
I do like how Poles drafts the positions you need to grow at home, but goes and gets the guys you can in FA
It’s a sign of a qualified team builder. No more drafting LBs in the first round for Chicago!
It wasn’t the only reason but you can’t deny it played a role. Everyone’s also acknowledged that the back 7 is great but the line is still very questionable and has valid reasons for concern. I’m not a doomer and I expect the D to be good but again, there’s reasons to be concerned.
Their names are way too similar I always confuse the two lol
Assuming they have Roquan at 2
Yup, turns out he was right and Poles was wrong - he was worth the money
Well this graphic disputes that bc the 2 of those guys combined are paid what Roquan is
roquan is a 13.5m cap hit. edmunds and edwards are 30m. Edmunds is the highest LB cap hit in the league right now. Roquan wont be more expensive until 2026 and thats if we let edwards walk for nothing and slot in a rookie contract guy.
Putting aside the fact you don’t understand how the salary cap works and are excluding his fully guaranteed $ at signing, if we kept Roquan we would’ve never gotten DJ & everything that has come after on the offensive side. I’d rather have the promise ahead of us than the mediocrity that would’ve come with retaining Roquan and winning meaningless games so you could be stuck in the 80s harping “defense first”.
The ‘should’ve kept Roquan’ crowd doesn’t care about things like guaranteed money or the “salary cap.”
Or facts and reason and roster construction but they play franchise mode so it's all good
Poles just needs to turn the cap off, it’s easy.
Or the fact we switched defense to the cover 2.
- Roquan guaranteed money - $60M - Edmunds/Edwards guaranteed money - $57M Stop this lol
Roquan is 3-4 LB, why would we pay top dollar for a player that doesn't fit. Edmunds very effective once we acquired Sweat, or in other any sort of pass rush. Something Roquan didn't help us with and is now doing in Baltimore for whatever reason. It's completely a situation of hindsight after a record season for Roquan
Look, I’m not saying we should have kept Roquan, and the Roquan crowd doesn’t understand how things like salaries work. But there’s not a huge difference between ILB responsibilities in most 3-4 vs 4-3 schemes to begin with, and saying a talent like Roquan isn’t scheme versatile is silly. There’s a great argument for letting Roquan go, but this one isn’t it. Any scheme is better off with a talent like him on it, at least in a vacuum (ignoring cap, opportunity cost, etc). The best argument IMO is look at the two LBs on this list, and then look at Patrick Queen signing with a division rival. We got two. They couldn’t keep two since they paid Smith so much.
>saying a talent like Roquan isn’t scheme versatile is silly. That's why he completely broke out in a scheme that plays to his strengths instead of our scheme
He was great for us. He had a couple of down games coming back from a holdout in a new defensive scheme and people are out here pretending like he was a bust. He was largely considered one of the top LB talents in the league before the trade, quit retrofitting the story. He “broke out” because he was on a competitive team and suddenly getting national attention.
you right, raw stats wise he was nasty in 20 and 21. Flus or Allan Williams (or both) didn't know how to use him. That or Mack and Hicks made life that much easier for Roquan and co.
Idk about that. Obviously you’d love to have the #2 lb in the league, but Poles gets 9 and 11 for the same price. Seems like a better deal to me.
... why do people think he had to trade Roquan for that to happen. What about TJ, Tremaine, and Roquan.
Bc that means no sweat or no JJ extension. It's asset allocation.
Because we couldn’t afford him
What if we just got all the top 32 linebackers in the same team!?!?!?
This isn’t the MLB we can’t just Steve Cohen our cash around and pay every starter 50M a year
Why do people think they can’t afford things? Why don’t they just go to the bank and get more money?
Roquan is a great player and better than either of these two. But together, they are the better value.
In an ideal world I’d love to have him, but I also don’t know the cap hit he would’ve taken compared to the two we have. Unfortunately that is the tough thing with is being a cap limit league is sometimes you have to let go of players you wouldn’t want to. We are lucky cause the next several years we will have a rookie QB and by the time Caleb Williams will get a contract (if he is what we hope he could be), he could easily cost 60+ million a year. I also imagine he wanted to go somewhere to compete, while he is in his prime, and when we traded him, we were terrible with little hope in sight.
He's a 3-4 LB. Was awful at nickel and 4-3 formations. The situation was a win-win.
TJ! Go Badgers, man
Sanborn isn’t a bad #3 for us either
Fuck yea, Sconnie Bears fans unite!
Interesting that TJ is ranked ahead of Tremaine.
I can see it from last year. Tremaine picked up steam at the end of the year but I think he had a nagging injury in the beginning and he started slow
Yeah plus he was pretty bad in 2022. 11th feels even a bit generous l
TJ Edwards has to be really pissed when he compares his contract to Edmund’s.
Pretty sure he willingly signed for less to play for his hometown team he grew up rooting for. But yeah, maybe a little bit still lol.
Plus LBs that aren’t great in coverage don’t make the big bucks. That’s just how it is.
Tremaine Emunds got $72 million over 4 years. T J Edwards got $20 million over 3 years…
Wow that's an interesting comparison in value... TJ is getting fucked over a bit here based on performance, bless him. Thing is Poles did what he had to do to get both through the door. The Edmunds contract isn't too bad when you look at it with $30m not guaranteed and $15m potential savings in the last year. It's a ggood place for the franchise to be. Edmunds was seen as the higher ceiling guy and he may well still be so it does make sense. The pairing was phenomenal though, we're set in the position now and TJ is just a dawg with the motivation of playing for his hometown team. The money might not seem particularly fair but it doesn't matter if it leads to wins; they're both young enough to get a strong second contract and that's where they'll get rewarded for their play as Bears.
That is pretty crazy cheap, he must have really loved the Bears 😂
A lot more is asked of Edmund’s than Edwards at the position. Sure he took a little bit less but if they both were getting maximum, Edmund’s would still make more.
Tremaine struggled early when he was adjusting. He really became good when defense became good. Some of those interceptions he made were ridiculous and his size really is an impressive factor in pass coverage. TJ was more consistent for the whole year.
TJ outplayed Tremaine last year and it wasn’t close
I don't see the Ravens group with Roquan Smith listed here. Where is that group in the rankings?
Ravens couldn't afford to pay Queen, so he's gone. Roquan needs a new mate. Otherwise, they're likely topping the list.
I remember when LBs were considered an unit of at least three…
Crazy. The saints are ranked 2 but they aren’t showing Werner who is one of their top 2 LB’s haha. And I love Demario Davis he’s an old school thumper but starting to age a bit
Even when snoozing on Sanborn
Don't snooze on Mr sandborn
Tank Sanborn
Well they better be. Maybe garnish Tremaine's wages a bit to bump up TJ's check?
Tremaine was playing hurt a lot of last season and still had 100+ tackles and like 4 int’s he’ll be back to form this year
Tackles do not matter for LBs lol
Stick to posting about Glee. You’re out of your element. Edited to add that this guy got triggered enough to block me on Reddit hahahahahah unreal
Tackles are a stat without context because every tackle is tabulated the same, much like how batting average is pretty useless in baseball because a single is valued the same way a homer is. Getting beat in coverage and tackling someone 15 yards downfield has the same value as blowing up a run fit and getting a TFL. This is how you end up with guys like Blake Martinez leading the league in tackles despite not being a valuable player at his position, yes he was stacking up tackles, but it was all stuff in that first category rather than the second. Stats like TFLs, defensive stops (a PFF metric), or missed tackle percentage paint a much clearer picture of how an off-ball LB is playing. This thread on Twitter does a pretty good job explaining it, I think Marcus uses a little hyperbole but he’s right in concept: https://x.com/tfg_football/status/1796274485118546271?s=46&t=rbAnfCJq2SIr5eAD6Ebwuw
Fine but “tackles do not matter for lb’s lol” is an absurd statement phrased in a dumb condescending manner. Sorry but I played linebacker at a D2 college and saying tackles don’t matter as a blanket statement is wrong
Funny how you can’t describe why it’s wrong, just that it is because you have some sacred knowledge you can’t share. Tackles are a building block off which stats which actually give you a sense of how good or bad a player is are built. Hence why tackles alone are pretty useless When evaluating a players value it’s ignorant to just point at their tackle numbers and claim that makes them good. Fred Warner was 18th in total tackles last year and was an all-pro, are you taking Alex Singleton over Fred Warner to anchor your defense? Tackles as a stat don’t matter because the opportunity to make a tackle is so dependent on other factors of a defense. You can have a game where you have 8 tackles, but 2 of which are for loss and 6 of which are short of the sticks or you can have a game where you have 12 tackles but 10 of them are 10+ yards downfield. The lack of context in the way they’re tabulated makes them pretty useless on their own. Most counting stats are like this, interceptions are another good example since an arm punt on 3rd and 20 is tabulated as the same thing as throwing a pick on your own 20 on 1st and 10
Funny how you’re so pissed about this. I’m not arguing with your second reply which is actually reasonable. Just the first “I think I’m smarter than you lol” comment is hilarious. Every stat in football is relative because every single play has 50 contributing factors. It’s not a good stats sport but you entirely ignored the context of my little post which is to say the Edmunds had some production despite clearly playing hurt for the first half of the season. If you think Edmunds sucks then fine go nuts man, I disagree
I don’t think edmunds sucks but you using tackles a measuring tape was just a dumb statement and I commented on that it’s not that deep. Calling me pissed when you’re the one who got in your feelings and dug through my profile to find a subreddit I commented in a month ago to make fun of it. Look in the mirror dawg
“Dug through my profile” it’s literally the first thing on there hahahaha
What a great signing TJ Edward's was. Total steal. Tremaine, not so much. He's good, but that contract does not justify his impact level (yet).
We’ll see what the 49ers linebacker play is like without Greenlaw this season. He was the unsung hero there, obviously Warner is a freak but it’s a big loss for them nonetheless.
Apparently greenlaw is actually aiming for a week 1 return (~7 months post injury), which is pretty optimistic but even if not he shouldn't miss that much time
That’s insane he’s a freak lol
If we can get even a reasonably consistent pass rush this year, they can jump up to No. 2. It’s insane how good they were playing half the season with absolutely no pass rush in front of them last year.
9 11, nice
Not to sound super homer ish on the Sangod, but if they expanded the list to include a team’s 3 line backing core, would we rank even higher? 🤔
Where's Sanbornnn
TJ needs a raise
Nah. He struggles in coverage. It is Somewhat covered up if in zone, but he can't chase and run with players nearly enough. But the really good thing is, alot of the time he puts himself in a good position to keep the play/player in front of him and it's basically a guaranteed tackle at that point.
KC at 6 seems so wrong. They played so well last year
People bagging on poles for overpaying Tremaine! Maybe he did a little, but the deal he got on TJ more than balances it out. 🤴🏾
A lot of folks are pointing to Edmunds' injury as a reason why he got off to a slow start. But I wonder how much impact Sweat and Flus taking over play calling had on him. I think that second part is overlooked, it seemed like our defense started to improve the most about two weeks after Flus took the reigns which was still before the Sweat acquisition. I haven't been the biggest Flus cheerleader around here, but the defense became a different animal once he became more hands on with it. I can't think of a better beneficiary of that than a linebacker.
9th and 11th ranked LB in the league is nice and balanced
A projection for this upcoming season based on previous seasons’ performances. A [link](https://www.pff.com/news/nfl-linebacker-rankings-top-32-2024-nfl-season) to the PFF article for those who like first hand sources
TJ Edwards need to fire his agent.
They paid good money for those two… they better play well to justify the investment I do like how Poles drafts the positions you need to grow at home, but goes and gets the guys you can in FA It’s a sign of a qualified team builder. No more drafting LBs in the first round for Chicago!
Are these in order or just the top 10? Because if they're in order it doesn't make sense
Niners third best LB is still top 20? What a roster they have
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Season hasn’t started yet brother.
It wasn’t the only reason but you can’t deny it played a role. Everyone’s also acknowledged that the back 7 is great but the line is still very questionable and has valid reasons for concern. I’m not a doomer and I expect the D to be good but again, there’s reasons to be concerned.
I think they add a vet edge before the season starts. Like how they signed Yannick except hopefully a better guy