Inside Out: Marques Douglas
Height: 6-2 Weight: 292
Age: 32
Born: 3/15/1977
College: Howard
Experience: 9th season
2008 Season — After playing in San Francisco during the 2007 season, Douglas was traded back to the Ravens last year to provide depth for the unit. During the 2008 season with the Ravens, Douglas played as he always did, well enough to be a solid contributor with 36 tackles, but no sacks, fumbles or PDs.
Strengths — For his size and for being an undrafted player, Douglas is known for his unusual quickness and big motor to be disruptive to another team’s offensive line. Douglas plays explosive off the ball and consistently beats offensive linemen to gaps, thus allowing him to play most of the game on the other side of the line of scrimmage. He reads blocks well and plays with excellent leverage.
Weaknesses — Think of CJ Mosely from last year. Mosely was a player with a high motor and who was quick off the snap, but isn’t truly built to be a two-gapping DE in a 3-4 system, he’d probably be better suited in a one-gapping 4-3 system. So it is with Douglas. Although Douglas might have the weight to play 3-4 Defensive End, playing End at under 6-4 can be a problem, as it generally signals that the player doesn’t have long enough arms to keep his opponents at bay … allowing for less redirection of offensive linemen. Due to this, Douglas can get swallowed by some of the bigger tackles around the league, especially against the run.
Analysis — For more on the topic, see Bent’s analysis here. The Niners traded him because they didn’t think he would start in 2008, the Ravens then confirmed that notion by not starting him in 2008 as well. He might know the system, but it’s hard for me to consider Douglas as an upgrade over the quiet though steady Kenyon Coleman. In my mind, Douglas can’t be relied on to be a 16 game, 2-3 down player for the Jets. Although it ate him to come off the bench last year, the truth is that Douglas is better off as a situational player at this point in his career, he’s likely going to be the “starter” but the truth is that he’s going to be splitting time.
Douglas might be part player-coach for this team, but look for players like Mike DeVito, Howard Green and even potentially undrafted rookie Zach Potter to push for playing time at his post in this system.
Use in the New Scheme — Douglas is not going to have a statistically great year as his job is to help protect the linebackers and enable them to make more tackles near the line of scrimmage during run plays. That Jenkins is next to Douglas is a plus in terms of creating some more space for Douglas to put the opponent’s offensive line into chaos by diving into the backfield. With Bart Scott and a capable group of linebackers behind Douglas, Douglas can protect his linebackers by applying pressure, even if more exuberant than effective, up front.
Douglas’ biggest strength is his ability to stop the run, and Ryan will use him in that role in my guess on first and second downs along with goal line or similar packages. Although Ellis might see some time as Tackle to mix it up, it might make more sense to me to play Douglas more as a second Tackle in four man fronts … but then again … don’t forget about Howard Green, the DT the team picked up with Ravens sympathies.
Other Inside Out Posts: Kris Jenkins, Shaun Ellis
Filed under: Main Page, Opinion
This D line scares me, if anything happens to Jenkins or Ellis we are in big trouble. There is no depth and no other starting calibar DE opposite Ellis. I guess we have to have faith in Rex
In a 3-4 system, the heart of the Dline is at tackle, the job of a DE is to fill gaps, and apply pressure on stunts, if the MLB’s break a 100 tackles and the OLB’s have a double digit year in sacks, the line did its job.
Canadian Bacon,
What position on this team has depth? Tannenbaum program = low # of draft picks, high # free agents, makes it hard to have depth.
LBs and CBs have too much depth, but I hear what your saying. Mr T needs to find some cheap depth. I hate to say it but that’s where NE is head and shoudlers above us
SO can he spell Jenkins at any time? so he doesn’t break down like he did at the end of last year?
DE concerns me even more than WR.
Feels almost like we’re an expansion franchise which began with almost no assets (except just Cotch, Ellis, Moore, Rhodes, Thomas, right?) still around from the Edwards regime.
It’s like roster-building time only started in earnest after turning the page from the Jolley/Nugent embarrassment and our transition to the 3-4.
I wonder how our roster turnover since Mangini’s first year compares to other teams and if it’s as dramatic as it seems to me.
I won’t beat around the bush with it, there’s nuthin special about marques douglas at this point and he’s pretty much gaabidge. I really hope rex knows how to utilize him and whomever he puts on the line across from ellis and jenkins, but not to say “I told u so” but mosley absenece is ringing louder than ever if you ask me.
Pouha is as bad as it gets, and devito is still unproven, hopefully he developes into something special…..if not, this team is in BIG trouble. No D-line depth, no WR depth and a whole bunch of blind faith in a rookie qb…smh
Bassett brings up a very good point. The Left Defensive End in a 3-4 is a very difficult position to play, Kimo couldn’t do it, Coleman was quiet, but he got the job done. I’m hoping that Mangini doesn’t look like a genius by including Coleman in that trade. IMO you will see a lot of Jenkins at LDE, thats where they play Nagata.
No doubt JEt Orange. I can see lines of GReen, Ellis and Jenkins,. Rex will also ask for less double team occupation and more penertration. Th ekey is keeping Jenks healthy
Canadian Bacon,
The Pats’ depth is better? The Pats have been desperately picking up no-names and has-beens to fill in their obvious gaps, especially on defense. And, if you want to see thin depth, take a look at the Pats’ depth chart for DBs. No team has great depth in the salary cap era.
As for the DL, the Jets lost Coleman (who IMO was vastly under-appreciated) and Mosely, but gained Green and Douglas. I expect DeVito to be improved and we don’t know what we have with Pitoitua. Also, we may see one of the bigger OLBs play with his hand on the ground in certain packages. So, we won’t really know about how good or bad the depth is until we see the new defense, which is NOT a pure 3-4.
i agree, sackdance. i wouldn’t be surpised to see some pure 4-3 in passing downs with gholston/pace/thomas at DE and ellis and jenkins inside. pace and thomas might be very good at lining up with hand in ground and then dropping back in zone blitz, too, as they have so much experience at OLB. (clearly, that is not a role for gholston.)
Coleman was great lat year, if your definition of “great” is not appearing in any frame that also included the ball.
That’s not how I saw it. Coleman (who led all NFL defensive linemen in tackles in 2007, don’t forget) took on a different role whereby he took on blockers, enabling others to make stops. His statistical productivity was way down, but he was as much a part of the Jets success against the run in the first half of last season as anyone.
Douglas is capable of playing the same role though, so he’ll hopefully be able to come in and do a solid job, although I doubt he’ll get many plaudits for it.
I am not yet convinced Howard Green can make this team.
Sankdance 99
Every year the Pats seem thin at DB and every year they lose 1 or 2 of there starting DB’s to make that position every more vulnerble. And yet every year they don’t get burnt like toast. Reason being is the pressure the front 3 put on. They have by far the best 3-4 DL. Their LB’s are good too but you win the game in the trenches on both sides of the ball
Cabras,
“What position on this team has depth? Tannenbaum program = low # of draft picks, high # free agents, makes it hard to have depth.”
We have great depth at RB, LB, and in the secondary.
Douglas is just as good if not betterthan Kenyon Coleman, so we are exactly where we were last year as far as the defensive line.
Revis,
I am no kenyon coleman fan, but how in the hell is douglas possibly an upgrade from coleman?
ridinmywave,
I shouldn’t have said “better than”. All I meant was based on what i’ve seen from Coleman along with what I know about Douglas, it seems they are very similar players and the defense shouldnt skip a beat from the loss of Coleman. Also, Douglas should know the defense pretty well which should give him an edge. I watched Coleman do absolutely nothing for the past few seasons, I cant imagine Douglas doing any less.
Coleman was a decent player. He had no pass rush ability whatsoever, but he was very good against the run. That isn’t worth the money the Jets were paying him, but the question is “who replaces him?” I’m not so sure the Jets have an answer. Maybe Devito can do that, but has mentioned above he is unproven.
Coleman was only considered “good against the run” whe Jenkins entered the lineup. He made absolutely no impact on the defense.
Canadian Bacon,
I’m not picking on you about the Pats, but it always seems to me that people assume certain things about the Pats and, when you actually look at the stats, then you realize the hype is not true. The Pats were atrocious against the pass last season. Football Outsiders ranked their pass defense 27th of the 32 NFL teams. Plus, their front 7 is aging (Seymour never seems to play a full season and how much longer can Warren and Wilfork escape the injury bug?) and will be weaker pass rushing (Vrabel, IMO, was over-rated as a pass rusher, but whose his replacement?). Bottom line is that the Pats have an elite, overpowering offense, but a very questionable defense that has not been able to make up for the loss of Assante Samuel and Rodney Harrison. We may want more depth on the Jets, but the Jets likely have the AFC East’s best defense (as they did last season), although that doesn’t mean much if the offense doesn’t score.
Marques Douglas and Kenyon Coleman are the exact same player. They are 3-4 D ends who play on run downs. Pretty much would be second rate DT’s in a 4-3 Tampa 2 type D. With the development of TiVo and NFL Sunday Ticket I watch a TON of football. I can assure any Jet fan who is worried about losing Kenyon Coleman that a suitable replacement has been found. Coleman was a guy Mangini wanted brought in from Dallas and huge contract kept him on the field more than his play warranted. If the Ravens could play the kind of D they played for the past few years with Douglas at D end, I m sure Rex knows just how to use him. I really dont think we will be saying “Kenyon Coleman would have made that play” all too much this coming season