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Well, if this thread is worth writing, then I guess it's worth detailing my chemistry decisions. Along the defensive front, we patched over with LB Wilcox for a couple of years -- he was basically the last man standing in the 8-9 group who would take the leadership role and anchor our group there. Now that he has retired, we have to decide how to proceed.
Bottom line is this - we have been hoarding 7-8 and 11-12 guys for years now, to build around a 8-9 leader. If we are at the point where there isn't a viable 8-9 group guy to step in and take the leadership reins, then we probably have to cut bait, and switch the leadership to either the 7-8 group or the 11-12 group. It happens every so often when managing rosters this way, it's a pain but not insurmountable.
So... if we end up going that way, here's a quick look at the D7 players affected (Group, Ldr/Pers, Pos, Name, Grade, Exp):
7-8 41/91 DE Rivers C 7th
7-8 20/50 DE Baker C 4th
7-8 19/43 DE Douglas B 9th
7-8 25/86 LB Hillenbrand B 9th
7-8 58/95 LB McCarthy B 7th
7-8 7/100 LB Haayer C 7th
7/8 68/19 LB Burks B 2nd
7/8 70/26 LB Lester B 4th
11-12 39/99 DT Broomfield A 5th
11-12 22/95 DT Lind C 3rd
11-12 6/99 LB Mathews B 12th
11-12 59/87 LB Richardson C 2nd
11-12 22/32 LB Emerson B 7th
11-12 11/89 LB Lincoln A 5th
11-12 10/62 LB Shapiro B 10th
So...from that setup, it seems pretty clear that unless I can find (or manufacture) a D7 leader from the 8-9 group (who could click with everyone above) the real play for us is to get a 7-8 leader. We'd then have to decide what to do with guys I'd prefer to keep (basically the Bs) but who would not longer have an affinity as long as a 7-8 leader sits atop the roost.
That would let us basically build around our 11-12 guys Broomfield and Lincoln, both of whom are high personality and starter-caliber for the long haul. We could end up cutting bait on last year's semi-promising rookie LB Burks, but after last offseason maybe just blocking the whole year/draft out would be for the best.
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