Let's start with a guy who's about to become my new favorite Panther, Stanley McClover, aka Sick Dog! (...hmm. Sick Dog. That's not a good name. I'm going to have to work on that...)
I ran across this video (big ups: SMQ) of the entire Auburn defense placating their hunger by tearing 'Baman Brodie Croyle into little pieces and eating him (translation: Sacking him 11 times. In one game.) How in the world is this relevant to this little edge of the intertubes? Well, li'l Sick Dog (really, seriously, gonna have to find another name for him... suggestions are welcome) was a key cog on that Auburn defensive line. Here, watch for yourself:
Interesting video. Well-edited, but I can't for the life of me tell the allegiance of the person who compiled it. Auburn fan? BC-hatin' 'Bama fan? Either way, they take perverse pleasure in the denigration of Brodie Croyle. (In all fairness to Brodie and the 'Bama offense, they had just lost my favorite college receiver ever to a hideous injury just a few weeks before.) Anyway, if you're a Panthers fan, you've pretty much seen this before.
So let's start off by noting a couple of things that led to this 11 sack total. First, Bama's interior linemen do not understand either A) what defensive line stunts are or B) how to handle them, and that accounts for almost half of the sacks (see: I'll go easy and just say sack #2). Next, Bama's tackles are not fleet-of-foot enough to get out on speed rushers that line up outside and come wide (see: sack #8). Finally, on those rare occasions when Auburn did something other than simply rush four down linemen, Bama's line was completely unprepared (see: zone blitz on sack #4). I don't think I'll even mention the backs' lack of blocking, except to mention that I'm not mentioning it.
But let's get back to talking about our latest 'great 7th round draft pick'. He spent the entire game alternating between collapsing the pocket, sacking Croyle, or being the second set of hands on Croyle. Unbelievable performance by that defensive line, and McClover in particular. He's credited with sacks 7, 8 and 9 all by his lonesome, but I'm going to give him a half-sack on #6 because he came around the edge and got there about a quarter-second after the guy that went untouched up the middle.
His game at this point was mostly the speed rush around the edge, very Simeon Rice, and his back-to-back-to-back sacks started when he mixed it up with that inside move on sack 7. The O-tackle was on his heels and completely vulnerable to those next two outside rushes ("..never got a hand on him.."). Reminds me of Peppers' game against the Lions in his rookie year, when he just had the speed rush and not much else, but he still racked up three sacks in the first half. If McClover has learned anything from his year+ behind Pep on the depth chart, it's that he'll need a variety of moves to get past NFL linemen. He might even develop some power moves since he finally weighs something close to an undersized defensive lineman. His linebacker-esque bulk has been the biggest knock on him, especially since that usually translates into poor run coverage. But apparently he's playing the run well, so we can expect a big year from him.
If, as I suspect, Rucker only takes about half the defensive snaps this year, then you can look for Sick Dog (really, I'm serious this time, I won't use that name again) to get a lot of snaps, and in the NFC South where
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