I'm not going to weigh in on whether we should be worried or not about our run D but those that claim we didn't have our starters on the field are at least partly incorrect. We are going to have a 7 man D-line rotation so in the case of our D-line we were playing our starters. The LB corps was missing ONE starter and one of them was playing out of position but that's far from saying we weren't playing our starters. If nothing else, what is the take away if we're saying that we can't stop the run with the planned D-line rotation and JL off the field?
Not as simple as saying we were playing the guys who will be "starters" in that they will be part of the rotation. The ONLY 'starters" on the D-line who were on the field for anything more than a token series or two, were Eugene Sims and Alex Carrington. Chris Long played a series. Wm. Hayes didn't play a down. Quinn played only a handful of snaps, all on 3rd down pass rushing situations. Brockers and Langford didn't play a down either. So by my count, that's FIVE of the SEVEN "rotational" guys who didn't play up front.
And as far as having only one starter at LB out, its more a case of who took his place that lead to most of the issues. By having Dunbar slide to the MLB position, and now putting Armstrong on the field to stop the running game..... well you saw how that turned out.
For all those people who still want to beat the drum for Ray Ray taking over for Dunbar at the WLB, I hope you took notice. He couldn't get off blocks, and over ran plays consistently. I know its ONE preseason game. But this is the same thing that shows up in every practice.