re: Kikaha tore his ACL?

I'm not saying that Kikaha is a bust, I'm saying why is everyone acting like the season is lost without Kikaka and why do we need to sign Freeny or Hardy? Kikaha had 4 sacks last year and yes he did show flashes; but he's been hurt most of his career, so why is this even surprising? There are plenty of players on our roster to give us the same production if not more than what Kikaha gave us. That's it, so if idiots think that I'm glad Kikaha got hurt, then keep being idiots. I wish bad on no one. I will say however, we lose very little production if Kikaka is lost for the season.

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Ellerbe also was hurt today

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Water is wet.

Really sucks about Kikaha. How does someone tear their ACL so much, it's crazy. I like the guy but this was the fear when the Saints drafted him in the 2nd round and who knows if we'll ever see a full solid season from him

Kikaha is a player that people were counting on stepping up and improving this year. He is very talented, young, and thinking that he would be able to do better than last year, especially staying at his natural DE position as people were expecting, did not seem like a stretch. You tend to expect or at least have a lot of hope for young high draft picks to improve a lot from the first to second year.

At the very least he was the best candidate on our roster to develop into a competent or even proficient edge rusher besides Jordan. If we are going to improve from having a horrible defense then we need more than just to replace what Kikaha did last year. We need a big improvement. Kikaha was the best candidate to do this.

Losing him is a devastating loss in potential. We'll see if some one unknown can step up, but this is a very discouraging early development.

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Obviously you have you're sold on Kikaka so you have no objectivity. We had 31 total sacks as a team last year and Jordan had 10 of those. Fairly has never been a 4 down player and has always taken plays off,if u think he's changed ok, put your money on Fairly. Rankins is unproven but his motor is without question one of the best that I've ever seen. Blaming Rob Ryan and Dennis Allen for lack of production and place no blame on the players is just obsurd. Jordan played in the same defense and ended up with 10 sacks. I didn't even like the draft pick, Kikaha is injury prone just like Romeus was in 2012. Why would you draft a player in the second round who already tore his acl twice? Kikaha is another Martez Wilson when healthy, not more, nothing less. No matter where Richardson or Edebali or Kikaka played near the line, on the edge or interior, nobody got it done with the exception of Jordan. Pass rush takes skill with hand movement but most of all it takes effort.

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I'm sold on Kikaha as an average pass rusher at worst, which he was last year, at his worst. Now, we are putting guys out there who couldn't generate consistent pressure although they played a decent amount of snaps (30-40%).

Fairley was used as a rotational DT who generated good pressure. Know what guy on our defense last year generated good pressure on the inside? Nobody. Is he going to be this savior, no, but if there's one thing that he's proven is that he's been a solid pass rusher his whole career: sacks, hurries, and hits all prove that. Know what we had last year, guys who couldn't even generate a hit or hurry.

Rankins is as much as an unknown as any other player, Hicks showed up all training camp 2-3 years straight and flamed out quick.

Nobody got it done consistently, not even Jordan. He had 10 sacks, but he had 9 games where he didn't generate a single sack. Why? Because nobody on the inside could generate any single ounce of pressure at all. Richardson was never generating pressure at all, Edebali and Kikaha were your only other two solid pass rushers and both had trouble if there was no interior push. Edebali also had more snaps pass rushing than Kikaha because someone had him drop into coverage.

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I'm not saying that Kikaha is a bust, I'm saying why is everyone acting like the season is lost without Kikaka and why do we need to sign Freeny or Hardy? Kikaha had 4 sacks last year and yes he did show flashes; but he's been hurt most of his career, so why is this even surprising? There are plenty of players on our roster to give us the same production if not more than what Kikaha gave us. That's it, so if idiots think that I'm glad Kikaha got hurt, then keep being idiots. I wish bad on no one. I will say however, we lose very little production if Kikaka is lost for the season.

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nobody is acting like the season is lost, you're just over exaggerating. extremely disappointed because a player who played well out of position last year was going to move to a more natural fit and we lost him for the season. On top of that, he showed last year that he could also play against the run so he wasn't a liability if you kept him in for high snap counts...where he was a liability is his coverage.

Why do we need to sign Freeney or Hardy? I'm against Hardy for other reasons, but Freeney is an experienced vet who showed he could still generate a lot of pressure and consistent pressure.

You say there are plenty of players who can give us the same/if not more production than Kikaha while none of them outside of Edebali (5) had more sacks than Kikaha. Ontop of that, Edebali was rushing the passer more often than Kikaha because we had him drop into coverage instead yet generated only 1 more sack and less pressures overall. That isn't a replacement, that is a downgrade.

We lost a starter, that is the simple fact, and is one less talent on this team where we need all the talent we can get because they suck arse and will continue to suck arse until proven otherwise.

all those guys are unknowns outside of Fairley.

He had multiple knee injuries in college I Knew it would happen eventually. Hopefully Davis Tull and Edebali are as good as we hope

If Dennis Allen's scheme is similar to Gregg Williams (which players like Harper says it is), then we'll be attempting to generate pressure with blitzers.

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all those guys are unknowns outside of Fairley.

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Or really known to be mediocre at best. Rankins is the only one who really has great amount of potential, but I'm expecting mostly him and fairley to be in the middle most of the time. They should help pass rush even there, but if they are mostly in the middle then they can't be mostly on the outside. We still need someone for the outside.

Even with this happening he was worth the pick on potential alone. It's a home run if it works out, but you have to pay for that potential with the risk.

Ok, I don't think either of you are close to accurte.

He looked pretty good at the beginning, but the injury slowed him down, and frankly they used him in asinine ways.

Anyone trying to downplay this loss is clueless.

"Oh, he didn't do much last year."

Dumb argument. Most players make their biggest leaps from year one to year two.

Even if he somehow put up the same numbers as last year, we'd still be missing his sacks, FF's, special teams play and run stopping ability.

This injury hurts us.