Rueben Bain Jr is dominating joint practice with the Jets

1997 draft- two first rounders
2021 draft- two first rounders
2026 draft- two first rounders

I don’t think we need two first rounders this year to do well. Heck, give me four nfl types like the 2001 team that had 4 taken in 2003.

These three are nfl types.
Wilson
Lightfoot
Blount
We have a lot more NFL types than that. Point would be how far along each are in their development in correspondence with their teammates. Not where they are individually. Those NFL types you mentioned the furthest along as a complete player is mondo by a mile. But again it's a team game. We know we're set right now at tackle. We need to see those types at end continue to develop NOW. If wilson continues to develop in run game he'll go top 10 with ease. Kids a freak of nature. Just gotta see it in game cause it's the reason he's here.

I'm becoming redundant now because everyone keeps responding about this. But my concern is singular and it's not really a concern. It's understanding what we gotta make strides at and calling that out. Those strides come than this defense will be absolutely dominant. But if I keep responding to people it's gonna look like I'm calling out a negative opposed to stating a truth & that's definitely not my intent.
 
Bowles said he's not even gonna play in the preseason game this week. A rookie. Nah, we know what we got. We're all set.

Insane.

One of their beat writers said today he'd have had at least 3, maybe 4 sacks during their joint practice. Just abusing the Jets line.
We've known for three years that he is a future all-timer... 😏🥲
 
I still can't wrap my mind around how easy they all think it will be too replace TWO first round de...
Nobody is saying the production will be matched identically. But let’s be real, Sean Taylor more than replaced a generational talent in Ed Reed. These guys don’t have to be Bain and Mesidor to be dominant in their own right. Why is that so hard to believe???

What’s wild is that this time last season, 80% of this board thought Mesidor was a JAG and Bain still had plenty to prove. Now, all of a sudden, we’re acting like you can’t replace that production with three former 5-stars playing in the same system, with the same coaches developing them. Make it make sense.

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I still can't wrap my mind around how easy they all think it will be too replace TWO first round de...
I'm super bullish on this 2026 DL because we return many very talented players and we have excellent coaches in Jason Taylor and Damione Lewis. My outlook has nothing to do with who was here last year. Players like Bain and Mesidor can never be "replaced" and I would never expect them to be.
 
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Nobody is saying the production will be matched identically. But let’s be real, Sean Taylor more than replaced a generational talent in Ed Reed. These guys don’t have to be Bain and Mesidor to be dominant in their own right. Why is that so hard to believe???

What’s wild is that this time last season, 80% of this board thought Mesidor was a JAG and Bain still had plenty to prove. Now, all of a sudden, we’re acting like you can’t replace that production with three former 5-stars playing in the same system, with the same coaches developing them. Make it make sense.

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Who cares what people on a message board thought before a season? We’re not replacing who message board porsters thought we had. We’re replacing arguably the best edge combo in the history of one of the best talent producing programs in the country. There will be a drop off there. The good news is there’s still plenty of talent, the kids inside of them should be even better, and we should have a way better offense.

I’ve been saying it since February and I’ll stick by it until proven otherwise. The defense will be worse. The offense will be better. The TEAM will be better, which is all that matters.

We were 5th in scoring defense last year. In the country. #5. I don’t think it’s crazy to say it’ll be a little worse this year. No, it won’t be 2024. FAR from it. The defense will be very, very good. But both those kids were total game wreckers in the truest definition. You don’t just replace that and not miss a beat.

The best news is our schedule is absolute ***, especially in the first month where we’re trying to gel. But IMO the true ceiling of this team lies on the offensive side of the ball. The offense can be as good as the 2025 defense. It should be. If it is, and the defense is still one of the 10-15 best in America, we’re going to easily be one of the very few best teams in the country.
 
Nobody is saying the production will be matched identically. But let’s be real, Sean Taylor more than replaced a generational talent in Ed Reed. These guys don’t have to be Bain and Mesidor to be dominant in their own right. Why is that so hard to believe???

What’s wild is that this time last season, 80% of this board thought Mesidor was a JAG and Bain still had plenty to prove. Now, all of a sudden, we’re acting like you can’t replace that production with three former 5-stars playing in the same system, with the same coaches developing them. Make it make sense.

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90 percent of the people on this board don't know **** about what they watching.

Not gonna keep clarifying my point. You wanna hear a negative in something or even more of a question than all good.

Only thing I will say is I don't think you're understanding my statement if you used Sean as that example.
 
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I'm super bullish on this 2026 DL because we return many very talented players and we have excellent coaches in Jason Taylor and Damione Lewis. My outlook has nothing to do with who was here last year because one really has nothing to do with the other. Players like Bain and Mesidor can never be "replaced" and I would never expect them to be.
Only issue with that is the statement of nothing about year previous. It's never about replacing the players as ur absolutely right about them. But as a whole it's about replacing that level of production so we can retain that level of play.
 
I believe Lightfoot and Blount will be good players. I will have to see the depth behind them before crowning it the "deepest DE room in the nation" that's all. We have three good players at the position and lots of talented, but unproven guys.
"deepest DE room in the nation"... well I mean idk if we are literally #1... But not sure you need to be literally #1....

This reminds me of when last summer people were saying we didn't have as good of a DLine as Clemson, Ohio St, UGA, Oregon, etc....
 
Only issue with that is the statement of nothing about year previous. It's never about replacing the players as ur absolutely right about them. But as a whole it's about replacing that level of production so we can retain that level of play.
In terms of replacing production I'd say the only Questions for the entire defense I'm really having are replacing Scott, Bain, and Mesidors Run Defense results.
Luckily for us we have a proven top 2-3 DT unit in the country (Oregon and OUs are also very good). So that'll help offset the Bain and Mesidor loss a bit by putting more responsibility on them. Fitzgerald (or anyone else in the nickel role) agains the run compared to what Scott provided in this department which was truly elite for us last year is probably the biggest question for me. Like ultimately I'm confident in Blount in Run D for sure. And Wilson has to prove it and take a significant step up from last season at Mizzou, but ultimately I think he has the ability. Hopefully his lack of Run D last year was simply due to what Missouri was asking out of their edges....

I don't particularly have any questions about replacing production out of pass rush mostly because I'd say that fits Wilson and Lightfoots proven strength already, and with what I fully expect our offense to be, it'll allow us to pin our ears back more - at least compared to last years offense.
 
Only issue with that is the statement of nothing about year previous. It's never about replacing the players as ur absolutely right about them. But as a whole it's about replacing that level of production so we can retain that level of play.
You are absolutely right to point that out. I was going to edit that out like I just did but something distracted me and I left it in there. Would you agree with my recently edited version?
 
Lightfoot has been targeted in the run game, but if he hasn’t shown everyone that he can impact the game by rushing the passer, don’t know what you need to see. He did it in the playoffs. What else ya need to see in that aspect? Ha.

Yeah, I want him to be better against run, too. I think he’ll make a leap. I’d absolutely hate it if he went to ND or Clemson. ****, ND got a transfer from Bama who is ‘all world’ and I think Lightfoot had as much production (disruption) against OSU in the playoffs than that dude had almost all his season at Bama.
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pound for pound he held up well against the run when he was asked to though. Our 6th highest graded player in Run D last season. BUT he only played 68 total Run D Snaps. And 19 of them were against Stanford, the rest of the games were all <6 each. His worst graded Run D game was Indiana. But the good news with that is his 5 best graded pass rush games were SMU, UF, FSU, Indiana, and Ohio St....

It also may be cherry-picking but among ALL P4 EDGEs last year with 50+ RunD snaps, Lightfoot had the 6th highest Run Stop% at 11.8% with 8, and 11 tackles (again on his 68 RunD snaps) and 0 missed tackles. And he was 71st in RunD grade with a 74.5.... (for anyone wondering a Run Stop is a tackle that results in a fail out of the offense, so like 1st down tackle like <4 yards, 3rd down tackle that prevents a 1st down, etc).

And just for Bain/Mesidor Context there:
Mesidor = 3rd in RunD grade at 88.3, 14 Run Stops for 4.9%, 22 tackles and 6 missed tackles
Bain = 8th in RunD grade at 86.2, 23 Run Stops for 6.9%, 33 tackles and 5 missed tackles.

Damon Wilson had 3x more RunD snaps as Lightfoot and had only 6 tackles and 5 run Stops.....so....
 
Never ceases to amaze me how they don't seem to realize that the guys that truly dominate at Miami usually go on to dominate in the league, but with Bain it was a no-brainer if you looked at film. I've always felt like he'll be the best player in this draft & still do. Should have been a top 3 pick easily.
 
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