Weakness Series: Who is Phillip Dillard?

We’d all like to think our teams are perfect. Fans love to bring up the stats that make their teams sound great. Fans are quick to bring up their five Lombardi trophies, three Super Bowl wins with three different quarterbacks, defeating an undefeated team on the grandest stage of them all, or dominating the NFC for half a decade. However, we all know deep inside that our teams have big weaknesses going into the 2010 season. This series will bring to light the biggest concern for the teams of the Beast. Today, we start with;

The New York Giants; Pre-Training camp rank- #2 in the Beast

Weakness: Middle Linebacker

You sit back and watch Peyton Manning approach the line of scrimmage; he then looks across the field to 11 men who would each like to take a clean shot at the league’s poster boy at any given moment. He quickly waves his arms, pats his helmet, and slaps his thigh to change the play, change a route, or change his protection (sometimes, all three at the same time).

What the announcers usually don’t point out is that there’s a guy on the defense doing the same thing, the middle linebacker.
I’m a huge fan of watching Peyton Manning call his audibles against the Ravens just to see Ray Lewis do the exact same thing in retaliation across the line of scrimmage. It is a game of chess in an otherwise physical and brutal sport. The middle linebacker is responsible for making sure the front seven (defensive line and linebackers) are all where they’re suppose to be (in most defenses, one of the safeties lines up the secondary).

With Perry Fewell taking over as defensive coordinator, it was obvious that Antonio Pierce was no longer going to be with the Giants. Fewell’s defense concentrates on the linebackers to be more free-flowing and stresses speed and quickness, attributes that a 31-year old Antonio Pierce no longer posses. Not to mention, in Fewell’s scheme, the middle linebacker (MLB) is responsible for covering some of the most athletic players in the NFC Beast. Players such as Jason Witten, LeSean McCoy, Felix Jones, and Brent Celek pose obvious problems for the smashmouth style that Pierce has because of their quickness and versatility.

We told you here at the NFC Beast Blog that the Giants obviously wanted Rolondo McClain in the draft, and the Raiders stole him before he fell to New York (did anyone hear the chorus of boos during the draft coverage when that happened? New York fans were going crazy). So instead, the Giants got help along the defensive line, but waited until the fourth round to draft a MLB in Phillip Dillard out of Nebraska. Although the job looks like it’s going to be his until someone beats him out, you have to question the Giants’ faith in a young fourth rounder to hold one of the most important positions on defense.

This is a Giants team that started off 5-0 last season, only to lose four straight and finish 2009 at 8-8. The defense allowed the third most points scored in the NFL with 427, a stat that any New York fan will want to forget (The only two worst teams were the Rams and the Lions. And NOBODY wants to be compared to them).

I don’t want to overstress the importance of the MLB position, but in a division where every offense seems stronger than last year, you better have someone that can produce at that position. The Giants have put all their eggs in the Phillip Dillard basket, much like they did last year with their young wide receiver core. They were right last year, but let’s see if they will go two for two.