Do the Panthers still have the best Dline in the NFL?
 

Ive brought this up before the season, and my personal belief was no, that the Baltimore Ravens have the best line not only because of how good they are, but also because of their versatility. Im starting to think Jacksonville deserves to be mentioned as well. If they had Hayward, theyd probably easily have the best dline. So what do you think, is the Panthers dline overrated? Whos is better?

NOTE: I forgot to mention the Falcons Dline, they are in the discussion as well. Don't worry about the poll, polls don't work anyway...Im more interested in the responses.

EVERYONE PUT ON YOUR HOMER HATS!! :lol:


I said the Bears before the season started and I still say Bears. When we have a player that isn't even active on gameday that the Bills wanted to sign as their starter, that says something. The Ravens? Why? I know you don't like the cover 2 BBD but I don't get that at all. The Ravens D-line is probably the weakest part of their defense.

A case could be made for the Jags but they don't get much pressure from the ends, especially now that Heyward is down for the year.

Another team that needs mention is the Atlanta Falcons, although I don't know the health situation with Kerney.

I forgot to add the Falcons. Well, the Ravens have their poor man's Stroud/Henderson in Gregg/Ngata, and they have Suggs who gets great pressure. Pryce is a very versatile DE who can play 3-4 DE and is good against the run and can drop in coverage in zone blitzes. They also have Adalius Thomas who can line up at DE. That Dline coupled with Adalius is so versatile, they can play a 4 man front and 3 man front with no dropoff. THey have the most versatile front in the league.

The Jags DTs are simply unreal. They absolutely devour the run on their own. Yes, they don't have a legit pass rusher out of the front 4 now that Hayward is out, if it wasn't for that imo they'd be the best. But even without Hayward they are doing real good.

The Bears have probably the best front 4 in terms of pass rush. But I question the ability of Oguneye and Brown to hold their position on off tackle runs. You can absolutely make a legit argument for the bear's dline, but as you said, you know where I stand with the Cover 2 front, so thats the reason why I rate Baltimore ahead. I feel baltimore can get you almost as good pressure with better run defense.

I still think the Panther do. But my mind could change throughout the season.

I love the interior d-line of the Jaguars, it's the best in the league imo. The edges leave something to be desired and there's definately better sets of bookends in the league.

Yeah I understand that, and that's actually a pretty good argument for Baltimore. It is worth noting, however, that in the games we lost last year, we lost almost all of them by the deep ball. Chad Johnson, Steve Smith, Santana Moss, etc. The only game that we lost on the ground is against Jerome Bettis, and there aren't that many (or any) Jerome Bettis' in the league today. If you look at the moves we made in the offseason (Daniel Manning, Ricky Manning Jr, Devin Hester) it was to proivide speed to a slow secondary, not to bolster our run defense.

Even in the game, early in the year when we weren't that good, against the Bengals and Rudi Johnson, we did a nice job against a big bruising back like Rudi, we just got beat by Carson Palmer and the deep ball.

I think if we take depth into account, Chicago definately has the best. If I remember correctly, Chicago constantly subs in dlinemen to keep everyone fresh. That definately helps the run defense. And you make a great point about the pass game beating Chicago and not the run game. The bears's Cover 2 is somewhat different from the conventional Cover 2 I noticed. The players other than the DEs and NT are not undersized like Tampa's and Indys. That makes Chicago's Cover 2 much more tolerable to me.

Chicago or Baltimore.

I love the Jags', of course, but I think they just fall short in comparison.

Then there's the Falcons, then the Panthers.

I have to go with Atlanta since they added Gravy and Abe.

If I was confident that Abraham wouldn't miss any more time for the rest of the year, I would say Atlanta. But I'm not confident in that. Chicago it is.

i like New England's front 3 of Warren, Wilfork, and Seymour.

when healthy, the front 4 of ATL is very scary....now thats just starters, like BBD said if depth is taken into account it almost HAS to be chicago because they can sub and their backups could start on alot of teams, and it keeps the starters fresh which is even better....

but abraham and kerney on the ends with grady in the middle is your ideal line, definately better then baltimore to me, and close with chicago because tommie harris is a top 4 DT in the NFL right now

1. Jenkins
2. Stroud
3. Henderson
4. Harris

after that shaun rodgers, casey hampton, and others come to mind, but i think those are the 4 top DT right now


but ATL possesses one of the top DE's, and another a top 10, with big Grady clogging up holes for the run game, and i like that mix

Bears are the best, with Atlanta second. I give the edge to the Bears in terms of depth. Atlanta has the best starting four, but the Bears have better rotational players. Had Kearse not went down the Eagles would've been a contender.

How about the Eagles.

i don't know how denver hasn't been mentioned.




........

I'm with you on that, I think it's still to early to detrimine that.

The Jags are pretty dam good.

Actually Id say the Jags. There are a couple of great DTs out there, to name the top 5 id say 1. Jenkins 2. Henderson 3 Stroud 4 Shaun Rogers and 5 Tommie Harris. The Jags have 2 of them. All they need is to pay two D-ends that are in the upper echelion of good and they would have the most dominating d-line. If they pulled Alex Brown away, and another solid D-end (cant think of any other non-premiere ones) that would be terrifying.

I'd fix that, assuming you didn't mean Patrick Kerney is the best DT in the NFL.. :shock:

yeah thanks. I meant to put Jenkins but I somehow got him mixed up with Kerney. Sorry bout that.

With Hayward its the Jags, but as it is now the Bears have the best dline. The Panthers line was a bit overrated coming into the season, Jenkins isn't playing like he was a few years ago and Kemo is nothing special. Peppers is a beast, but right now he is the only one on that line playing up to his potential.

Don't forget, Rucker is past his prime as well.

Rucker had a prime?

I guess '02-'03 could be considered "it," those were his only double digit sack seasons. Which considering that Peppers is acrossed from him, isn't that impressive.