Quote:
Originally Posted by Chargem
Haha I was slightly baiting you with the second sentence, I'm sorry. You did put words in my mouth about the Raiders O line when you quoted me though, so you deserved it.
I do think the point is valid that you pay guys the big bucks to beat the good O lines, I'm not really willing to get into too much of a debate about Mack because I don't have time to go back and watch the Bears Raiders game and see if they just shut Mack down by chipping him every passing down, or at the cost of giving up pressure elsewhere by focusing on Mack.
I'm not even one of the people on here expecting splashy plays all the time from him. The thing about D linemen is that an offense can commit to shutting them down if they want to pay the price that it costs. You can double team Donald every snap and probably prevent him from getting much pressure for a whole game, if you want to leave the guy next to him 1 on 1 all game.
I don't even think Clark sucks, I am just not a fan of the deal that brought him to KC. He's a good player we paid an elite player price for.
How about this, when you look at the price tags on Clark and Mack, would you agree they are both in the same ball park, 20.8m vs 23.5m average per year and 2 first rounders vs a 1st and a 2nd rounder? Do you think Clark and Mack are in the same ballpark talent wise?
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No worries. At least half my fault for allowing myself to get re-engaged into this thread. Right after I posted that I wouldn't. So I'm the dumb one.
Anyway, good questions you've got here.
I'll skip getting into Mack's performance against the Raiders for now, but you got the gist of it. They doubled him, chipped him, ran most of their plays away from him, etc. But sometimes they had to let Brown just take him on, and Brown won all of those match-ups. Lot of possible reasons for that, but not going to dive into that here.
But that last bit, that's a question to look at it.
The short answer is "no," I don't think Clark is on the same level as an athlete or even as just a sack artist as Mack, and I don't believe it's close.
Mack is like Aaron Donald; they're mutants/freaks and can't really be compared to anyone else currently in the league, IMO. They are physical outliers, like Barry Sanders or Shaq, and comparing anyone to them just isn't fair to the field.
However,
Veach and Spags didn't bring Clark to KC to get sacks. They knew he could get after the passer, and would ring up about 9-12 sacks/season, sure, but that wasn't the primary reason to trade for him, IMO.
He was brought to KC to be an anchor on the DL, a run-stopper (which as we all remember was a huge problem for our DEs the previous couple seasons), a leader in the lockerroom,
and a legit pass-rusher.
I've made all these arguments before, in this very thread, so I'm not going to repeat all of that again, but my overall point has always been that Frank isn't just a pass-rusher. He's a Swiss Army knife on the DL. That's why he's here; Spags wanted a guy that could pass rush,
and defend the run.
And go into coverage.
And play at DT.
And understand situational football.
And lead.
And play unselfishly. Etc.
And I don't really care that he gets paid $20 million/yr, not after he did what he did in the playoffs and LIV. He showed up big in the last half of 2019 and the playoffs, something a KC DE hadn't done in some time, and by that 'metric' alone, he was worth it, IMO.
From basically the first day, Clark had his position nailed down, and after that it was just get Jones to play a little more disciplined, find some help for Nnadi (Saunders/Pennel), and rotate a crew of JAGs in at the other DE spot, move them around at will because you know you have at least three guys on that line that know what they're doing. Result? Win LIV. To me, that's worth $20 million/yr.
Anyway, sorry if I came off testy; wasn't my intention.