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Dallas Sartz writeup from Conquest Chronicles

By Skin Patrol

Shortly after the draft I solicited information on Dallas Sartz per the SBN bloggers who would know something about that: Paragon SC and DC Trojan of our USC Blog, Conquest Chronicles. They graciously responded with their thoughts on Sartz and how he might fit in with the Redskins, which can be found below:

Dallas Sartz's value became apparent to me during the Rose Bowl Game against Texas. Sartz wasn't on the field due to being out with a shoulder injury. Having him in the line up would have made it a lot tougher for Vince Young to pull off his heroics in what was, at least to me, the greatest college football game ever played.

There is no question that he is motivated and a leader and will bring a strong positive attitude to the Redskins. He's a gamer and has the skills to become a productive NFL caliber linebacker.

He does need to add some size and be quicker in order to handle blocks off the line. He's not explosive or terribly strong but he can play both inside and outside though I think his range would suit him better to play the inside where he can both pass rush and work to be an effective weapon against the run. He also needs to improve his work at the line of scrimmage particularly against the Tight End, but he can cover a Tight End in the flat. He drops back well into pass coverage.

Coach Gibbs will probably start off using him on Special Teams because he is athletic, intelligent and learns quickly. Pete Carroll tends to play two kinds of linebacker: the kind that are genuinely fast (Rey Maualuga) and the kind that are fast because they read an offense well. Sartz is in that latter category. If the Redskins are going to focus more on having assigned safety roles, which they have suggested, to improve the pass defense in the secondary, then Sartz is the kind of player who can defend against shorter passes to give the safeties room to work. He tends to find the ball whatever the play from the offense is.

Very encouraging stuff on our fifth round draft pick. If I had to guess his immediate impact, I would agree with our USC bloggers that he'll see some field on special teams. The catalyst for Sartz seeing field defensively would be an injury to Marcus Washington, that would open up a starting spot for competition, which Sartz would see. Interesting to hear that Dallas could also fit as an inside linebacker, and he sounds smart enough to play that "quarterback of the defense" role Gregg Williams covets. Still, there's a bit more competition there as he would presumably compete with London Fletcher (who as far as I can tell has never been injured) and Lemar Marshall and The Hamburglar for a starting job. Similar deal on the weakside, except that London Fletcher is replaced by Rocky McIntosh.

The rest of the linebackers do not present much competition, in my opinion. I like Khary Campbell though Sartz already outsizes him and has some additional room to grow. Anthony Trucks could surprise some people in virtue of his name, which is far too perfectly scary for him to suck at football. Realistically though, he's got an uphill battle to compete with our newest two drafted linebackers, Sartz and Blades.

Thanks again to Conquest Chronicles for the writeup.

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