He never dropped out of the rush bro. Seriously. He was stonewalled. I'll stand by my claims that he's terrible on pass defense and is an average blitzer at best. Don't get me wrong that play was bigtime. We were lucky he was stonewalled if you'd like to look at it that way.
I don't think he's top 5. Kuechly,Wagner,the 2 Dallas ILB's. Hell I even liked that guy from the Rams. I'd have to look thru every roster since I'm not as good at personel as I used to be.
My whole thoughts on CJ was the last post on pg 33. All 3 of you guys probally missed it but I'd let the market determine CJ's value. On replacing him lets see if anybody gets released. All the options are not on the table yet.
if the market determines CJ's value then we're much less likely to retain him at a decent price...
And btw you're absolutely blind if you didn't see CJ bail once he realised he couldn't get to the QB - he dropped into the hot route passing lane and watched the QB's eyes knowing that it was an all-out blitz - so he got stonewalled - but he was part of an overload blitz so he knew he didn't have to get home he just had to occupy an OL if he couldn't and in the end he both occupied a lineman and dropped into the passing lane
and with regards to top 5 CJ is clearly top 5 - id say he's probably number 3 in the league - there's some promising guys on rookie contracts but you pretty tough to say they're ahead of mosley after 1 year and even then of the young guys in the league i think the only arguments you can make would be LVE and Darius Leonard who were both rookies
and if you count - then that's still top 5...
his year as a blitzer in 2018 was disappointing but his previous 4 seasons he's been a good blitzer and everyone seems to have this nonsensical opinion that he's a bad pass defender pretending they watch him every down when in fact they only notice plays like the Tyreek Hill miracle ball from Pat Mahomes and extrapolate and assume CJ's bad in pass defence - which is not the case - if he was bad as a pass defender he would not be a 3 down starter in the league let alone pro-bowl/all-pro every year
there's a reason why sizzle and the vets called this guy half-man-half-amazing since his rookie training camp