Originally posted by Hopper:
Harbs just said Tank had a procedure after the season to clear out scare tissue in his knee. He said he couldn't straighten out his knee before the surgery.
Well that's reassuring. ...There is a reason many of us are not convinced our DL is as "set" for the years to come.
* Justin Smith is 35 and said himself he's not sure he'll be able to do this anymore after this coming season.
* McDonald is rock solid, but he turns 30 this year himself and has been nicked up fairly often.
* Carradine has yet to even step foot on the field for a game -- no one should assume how good he'll be, if any, until we see him play.
* Dial dressed for only three games. He made 1 tackle. 1. He's the 4th string NT/DE. Totally unproven.
* Jerrod-Eddie showed a fair amount of both promise and versatility, but he's still developing and the drop-off was still obvious when he was in, as opposed to the regular starters.
So after our aging starters, all we have really is one big clump of question marks. I don't know about you, but I sure don't want to go into the season with all those eggs in one basket. It's my opinion we must draft a DL in case Carradine isn't healthy. TJE showed promise, but there was still a noticeable drop-off between him and the starters. If McDonald or Justin get hurt, I want a player in there who gives me more assurance than our current backups.