Posluszny, Landry also on Jaguars Radar
The Jaguars are evidently not looking to be small players in free agency this year, as Jason LaCanfora reports that GM Gene and the Jacksonville front office have their eyes on Paul Posluszny, LB – Buffalo and Dawan Landry, S – Baltimore. The condensed free agency period, precipitated by this year’s several month-long labor dispute, is shaping up to be even more exciting than advertised. What could these two players offer for Jacksonville? Follow the jump to read more…
If anyone ever looked the part of a bone-crushing middle linebacker, it’s Paul Posluszny. Is there a specific excercise to get a neck that thick? Or was the Poz born with that Sequoia supporting his football helmet? Posluszny is in no way a flashy player – but he anchors the middle of the defense with his instinctive play, on-field quickness, and solid fundamentals. He’s the definition of tackling machine and doesn’t man ballcarriers slip by him. In many ways, he reminds me of a poor-man’s Brian Urlacher – pure old school, smashmouth linebacker. It’s no secret the Jaguars have had their eye on him since he came out of Penn State and he would be prototypical GM Gene addition to this team.
Dawan Landry has had a solid career thus far in Baltimore, often feeding off of the perennially highly-ranked defense alongside him. He plays “down in the box” and defend the run extremely well and is decent in coverage. With any players (especially in the safety position) playing in an elite defense, you have to be careful about scouting them for their true individual talent and not just their ability to take advantage of playing in a unit that is consistently putting the quarterback under duress and the defense as a whole is too good to try to single out individual players. I am skeptical of Landry for this reason and because I feel that the Jaguars true need is a coverage safety, who can take some pressure off of our corners instead of consistently leaving them on the island.
My prognosis for this report is that Gene is simply “kicking the tires” on Landry, but has a legitimate interest is Posluszny and will pursue him hard – he’s a perfect match for Jacksonville and shouldn’t come at too steep a price. However, the Jaguars have lots of needs, lots of cap space, and Weaver has already said he’s ready to spend, so we could soon see some big name, young, solid defenders injected into the Jacksonville defense.
– Andrew Hofheimer