05-19-2022, 01:49 PM
(This post was last modified: 05-23-2022, 11:37 AM by allbetsonjames. Edited 1 time in total.)
History of the Defensive Tackle (Part 1)
The defensive tackle is one of the more interesting and important positions throughout the history of football and having a game changing DT can result in some great things for your or your favorite football team. From having a stud interior pass rusher like Aaron Donald or Geno Atkins capable of powering past the offensive line and bringing down the QB, to more of your old school 3-4 nose tackle like a Vince Wilfork or Damon Harrison, capable of shedding or eating up blocks allowing for run stuffing and edge rushers to have more success outside, there are many ways you can take this position. In the ISFL, it is no different and having a capable interior lineman can certainly help a defense be able to do what they do and stop the opposing offense from scoring. The DT throughout the history has been used many different ways in the league and we aim to discuss everyone that has called themselves a DT in the NSFL/ISFL's long history. From leaderboards across the defensive tackle position, to rehashing awards back in the day, to their drafts and colleges, and much more, we will cover the history of the defensive tackle in the ISFL.
First, I will give you a bit of background on why I am choosing to write on this topic! Other than the obvious answer that I am needing money and have turned my focus to earning ISFL money since I am set on PBE and WSBL funds for awhile, I have a couple reasons. The first obviously is that my new player, Fat Jack, is a new Season 36 draftee at the defensive tackle position and it is in fact my first out of my four players on the defensive side of the ball. Not only can I focus on trying to be the best defensive tackle that I can be but I can look at the history of the position and get a gauge for what it means to truly be a great defensive tackle in the ISFL. Another reason I would say is just the fact that I consider myself to be a big stats nerd, I mean I earned a degree in it so I should like it right? Beyond that though, I love breaking down different stats and just seeing them all laid out and in addition the history of stats in sports as well but especially in these sim leagues because it is what I thoroughly enjoy. I love seeing the history and the benchmarks set by players before me and love seeing my player climb the overall charts and leaderboards in any of these leagues that I am in. My third and final reason is that with my entrance on to the defensive side of the ball in the ISFL, I chose my favorite defensive position to play as. I have always been a fan of defensive tackles and as a Jets fan it makes sense since you could pretty much guarantee a drafted interior lineman at some point early in the drafts. Really though, I have always loved the big guys in the middle especially seeing the versatility between them. Seeing guys like Aaron Donald be the best defensive player probably of this generation has been awesome to see and then even other than that, seeing guys on my own favorite team like Quinnen Williams be pretty balanced DTs that are elite against the run but can rush the passer as well has been fun to watch. My favorite player for awhile was Damon 'Snacks' Harrison and watching him play the position as well. He was not a pass rusher and he was huge and slow as hell but he controlled the interior line and was able to just eat up blocks and shed them for some run stuffs as well. I feel like it is all good reasons to come out and write about the history that my current player plays and one that I thoroughly enjoy to hopefully make for some interesting stuff.
Season 1
We start our DT journey where it all began in Season 1. Nobody knew how the league would play out and the inaugural draft would set the pace for the rest of the league. Concerning our research, we are looking to see where DTs were drafted in the inaugural NSFL draft. We will look at the teams that drafted our interior linemen, from what colleges, and what picks our guys went and then move on to some other stuff. The other stuff we will get into are how they performed in the first ever NSFL season and then look at if any players got any awards or made the pro bowl. Then we will wrap it up and move on to the 2nd season in the next coming article. So for now, let's take a look at where our defensive tackles went in our first ever NSFL draft!
*A bit of a disclaimer is that all lineman were labeled as defensive lineman as a whole and the defensive tackles here will be taken from where they are listed at in the Season 1 Index.
Season 1 Draft
1st Round - 1st Overall - Orange County Otters - DT - J.J. Reigns - Wisconsin
The first ever pick in NSFL/ISFL history was a defensive tackle! J.J. Reigns has claim to being the first pick ever representing the Wisconsin Badgers who were proud to have their first player off the board ever in the NSFL as well. Reigns would also go down as one of the first busts in league history as well but we won't get into too much of that as our main focus is on season 1. That being said, small fun fact, Reigns flamed out pretty early and actually ended his career as a wide receiver.
3rd Round - 14th Overall - Yellowknife Wraiths - DT - Mark Ramrio - Penn State.
Another DT pick and another from a Big 10 school this time with Ramrio from Penn State!
3rd Round - 15th Overall - Colorado Yeti - DT - Vinny Cox - Tennessee
A mini run on defensive tackles here with the Yeti seeing the need to scoop one up after Ramrio came off the board. Vinny Cox represents the first non Big 10 DT ever drafted and the first DT drafted out of both Tennessee and the SEC.
3rd Round - 17th Overall - Baltimore Hawks - DT - Franklin Harris - Houston
The mini run continues a bit here with an OL being taken at 16th but Baltimore saw a couple come off the board and got on the DT train as well. Franklin represents the first non Power 5 drafted DT, the first from Houston and the first from the American.
8th Round - 45th Overall - San Jose Sabercats - DT - Josh Cameron - Michigan
Well, our mini run certainly ended there with no DTs being drafted between 17th and 45th overall with the Sabercats' selection of Cameron. Cameron is yet another interior lineman that comes out of the Big 10 Conference, this time from the Michigan Wolverines. It was likely a difficult time to be an offensive lineman in the Big 10 during this era!
11th Round - 66th Overall - Arizona Outlaws - DT - Arbin Asipi - UCONN
Another wait for the DTs in the draft but not quite as long as Asipi goes off the board at 66. Asipi is the 2nd American Conference DT selected and first out of UCONN representing the Huskies and New England!
15th Round - 85th Overall - Orange County Otters - QB/DT - Romeo Devitt - Washington
Orange County makes history technically being the first team to employ multiple interior defensive linemen but there is a catch. Romeo Devitt played his college ball as a QB for the Washington Huskies. He was a bruiser as a QB and he gained enough weight and hit the gym to transition to a DT position. Devitt was the first DT technically drafted from the PAC-12 and the University of Washington.
15th Round - 88th Overall - San Jose Sabercats - DT - Dan Miller - LSU
The Sabercats are the first team to take multiple natural interior linemen in the S1 Inaugural Draft! After selecting Josh Cameron 45th overall, they double dip and take Dan Miller out of LSU. The 2nd SEC DT and first out of Louisiana State, the Tigers alumni would go on to have a hell of a career. While we are not talking about overall careers and histories yet, we have to just point out that at 88th overall, Dan Miller would go on to be named the first DT in the NSFL Hall of Fame and still holds the all-time career records for sacks in the league as well. What a steal!
17th Round - 102nd Overall - Arizona Outlaws - DT - Luke Pierce - Ohio St.
Arizona gets their 2nd DT in the Inaugural class by selecting Luke Pierce out of Ohio St. It seemed to work out for the Outlaws as they went on to win the first ever NSFL Championship. Luke is yet another Big 10 Conference Product joining Reigns, Ramrio, and Cameron before him. He is the first DT drafted out of THE Ohio State though.
18th Round - 104th Overall - Baltimore Hawks - DT - Gilfred Harrison - Texas Tech
Another team double dips at the DT position with the Hawks drafting Harrison here from Texas Tech. After taking Franklin Harris early at 17th overall, the Hawks grab the Red Raider out of TTU in Harrison to shore up their interior defensive line. Harrison becomes the first DT drafted out of both the Big 12 and Texas Tech!
19th Round - 111th Overall - Colorado Yeti - DT - William Nasher - Texas
Another double dipping team and another prospect who played his collegiate ball in the Lone Star State. Wiliam Nasher heads to the Yeti with the 11th overall pick and becomes the 2nd DT to be drafted out of the Big 12 and the first out of Texas representing the Longhorns.
19th Round - 112th Overall - San Jose Sabercats - DT - Bert Metas - Michigan
The first triple dipping teams for drafting DTs and the first school to have multiple DTs drafted in the NSFL, the Sabercats made both things happen with the selection of Metas from Michigan. Metas joins his teammate Josh Cameron as DTs from Michigan both drafted by the Sabercats. He would end up being moved to Baltimore however so San Jose did not draft Metas to immediately use him.
23rd Round - 134th Overall - Yellowknife Wraiths - QB/DT - Trent Bender - Florida
The Last DT off the board technically was similar to the 85th overall pick in Romeo Devitt in that he was a QB that transitioned into a defensive tackle. Yellowknife after taking Mark Ramrio 14th overall did not decide to take a 2nd DT to this point and instead opted on a player that might fit the mold and transition into a DT so they could steal one late. Bender becomes the 3rd SEC product at the DT position and the first from thte Florida Gators!
Undrafted Waiver Claim - Yellowknife Wraiths - DT - Ben Green - Liberty
During the first season, there was a late season acquisition at the defensive tackle position and that was Ben Green out of Liberty. He technically will end up in our Season 2 draft portion of our series but he got some run in late in the season for the Wraiths so we wanted to include him here. Green is our first FCS product to make the transition from the football subdivision and play at the highest level in the NSFL/ISFL. Obviously, he also is our first Liberty Flames product as well!
Draft Round Up:
We saw an interesting draft when it comes to the first ever NSFL defensive tackles for sure. The number one pick in the entire draft was a DT and 4 teams had their main DT picked by the end of the 3rd round but then things fell off a bit in terms of picks but certainly not talent. Teams like San Jose and Arizona opted to grab their first DTs later in the draft but one of them, Dan Miller, ended up in the hall of fame and was an all-time legend. So, it seems like the draft position really did not matter a whole lot in this draft but all teams ended up with at least 2 DTs in the Inaugural Draft.
Colleges and Conferences Represented:
BIG10: 5 (Michigan: 2, Wisconsin: 1, Penn State: 1, Ohio State: 1)
SEC: 3 (Tennessee: 1, LSU: 1, Florida: 1)
American: 2 (Houston: 1, UCONN: 1)
BIGXII: 2 (Texas Tech: 1, Texas: 1)
PAC12: 1 (Washington: 1)
FCS: 1 (Liberty: 1)
Season 1 Results
The draft was over and it was time to put on the pads and play football for the first season ever in the NSFL. After taking a look at where all these DTs went in the draft and to what team, we can now look at how they performed over the season and see what awards were potentially given out or look at our DTs who made the Pro Bowl roster as well. We will look at the leaders in each statistical category for season 1 and then talk about maybe ranking the DTs that season and also talk about awards or potential awards and pro bowl appearances. We will sort of just do an overall review as if we were discussing the best DTs in Season 1 and analyzing all stats to back up what we are talking about!
Tackles
1) Vinny Cox - COL - 69 Tackles
2) Mark Ramrio - YKW - 57 Tackles
3) Franklin Harris - OCO - 56 Tackles
4) Bert Metas - BAL - 55 Tackles
5) Romeo Devitt - OCO - 53 Tackles
6) Dan Miller - SJS - 51 Tackles
7) Trent Bender - YKW - 47 Tackles
8) J.J. Reigns - OCO - 46 Tackles
9) Josh Cameron - SJS - 43 Tackles
10) Arbin Asipi - ARI - 37 Tackles
11) William Nasher - COL - 31 Tackles
12) Gilfred Harrison - BAL - 26 Tackles
13) Luke Pierce - ARI - 6 Tackles
14) Ben Green - 1 Tackle
Tackles for Loss
1) William Nasher - COL - 11 TFL
2) Vinny Cox - COL - 7 TFL
3) J.J. Reigns - OCO - 4 TFL
3) Dan Miller - SJS - 4 TFL
5) Josh Cameron - SJS - 3 TFL
6) Trent Bender - YKW - 2 TFL
6) Romeo Devitt - OCO - 2 TFL
6) Gilfred Harrison - BAL - 2 TFL
6) Franklin Harris - OCO - 2 TFL
6) Bert Metas - BAL - 2 TFL
6) Arbin Asipi - ARI - 2 TFL
12) Mark Ramrio - YKW - 1 TFL
13) Luke Pierce - ARI - 0 TFL
13) Ben Green - YKW - 0 TFL
Sacks
1) Mark Ramrio - YKW - 14 Sacks
1) J.J. Reigns - OCO - 14 Sacks
3) Trent Bender - YKW - 13 Sacks
4) Franklin Harris - OCO - 12 Sacks
5) Bert Metas - BAL - 11 Sacks
6) Romeo Devitt - OCO - 10 Sacks
6) Dan Miller - SJS - 10 Sacks
8) Vinny Cox - COL - 7 Sacks
9) William Nasher - COL - 6 Sacks
9) Josh Cameron - SJS - 6 Sacks
11) Gilfred Harrison - BAL - 4 Sacks
11) Arbin Asipi - ARI - 4 Sacks
12) Ben Green - YKW - 1 Sack
13) Luke Pierce - ARI - 0 Sacks
Forced Fumbles
1) Romeo Devitt - OCO - 2 FF
2) Vinny Cox - COL - 1 FF
2) Mark Ramrio - YKW - 1 FF
2) Josh Cameron - SJS - 1 FF
2) Franklin Harris - OCO - 1 FF
2) Bert Metas - BAL - 1 FF
3) Rest tied with - 0 FF
Fumble Recoveries
1) Romeo Devitt - OCO - 1 FR
1) Gilfred Harrison - BAL - 1 FR
3) Rest tied with - 0 FR
Interceptions
1) All tied with - 0 INT
Pass Defenses
1) All tied with - 0 PD
Safeties
1) William Nasher - COL - 1 Safety
1) Gilfred Harrison - BAL - 1 Safety
1) Bert Metas - BAL - 1 Safety
Defensive Touchdowns
1) All tied with - 0 TD
Blocks
1) Mark Ramrio - YKW - 1 Block (1 Blocked Punt)
1) Josh Cameron - SJS - 1 Block (1 Blocked Punt)
There we have all the stats in order for our defensive tackles! We can see some interesting things for sure as we dive into them a bit. In general, the DT position is not a high tackle or tackle for loss position as we can see here as most DTs finish usually somewhere like 4th on their team in tackles and are usually trailing the defensive ends of tackles for loss early on and even some linebackers. However, what we do see is a great ability for DTs to get to the QB early on and really get through the interior offensive line and cause havoc. We see mostly 2 teams that utilized the DTs more in the pass rushing side with the top 4 DTs in sacks on 2 teams, Orange County and Yellowknife. We also see a big potential run stuffing defensive focused team with Colorado who has the two top tackle for loss DTs on their roster. There were 0 defensive touchdowns, 3 total safeties, and 2 special teams blocks to go along with the expected numbers of 0 interceptions and 0 passes defended as well as the DTs were standing their ground and staying on the line. We don't see things in the sim like balls batted down at the line, DTs dropping into coverage on disguised blitzes or anything like that so we expect to see these stagnate at 0 for awhile or ever if I am honest. I debated just removing it but who knows, maybe we can find some DT pass defense stats come in at some point!
Based on stats, you see that the guys who really separated themselves are the OCO guys in Reigns (first overall pick) and Harris and the YKW guys in Ramrio and Bender especially as tandems go. I think you need to give Colorado some good credit with some really versatile DTs as well with Nasher and Cox as they were the best TFL guys in the league at DT and had respectable sack numbers in there. Combined TFL+Sacks would have a guy like Nasher second in that category for combined stats behind the line of scrimmage just 1 behind Reigns who had 18 combined sacks and tackles for loss. It is also important to note that there were 3 DTs on Orange County who finished with 10+ sacks which is pretty impressive especially since they considered the position a premium. Guys like Bert Metas and Dan Miller are other guys who had really good seasons.
Pro Bowl DTs
ASFC - J.J. Reigns (OCO), Franklin Harris (OCO)
NSFC - Mark Ramrio (YKW), Bert Metas (BAL)
Pro Bowl Counts:
1) J.J. Reigns - 1
1) Franklin Harris - 1
1) Mark Ramrio - 1
1) Bert Metas - 1
Awards
0!
Unfortunately in the early days of the NSFL, they combined the DLs into just a defensive lineman of the year award and the DL of the Year award went to Jayce Tuck of Arizona who had 17 tackles for loss and 16 sacks!
There was no easy way for a DT to be recognized with an award early on but we are here now!
Season 1 DT of the Year!
Mark Ramrio! 57 Tackles (1 TFL), 14 Sacks, 1 FF, 1 Blocked Punt
Personally I went back and forth between J.J. Reigns and Mark Ramrio here and the differences were pretty negligible in my opinion but I decided to go with a player that I thought contributed slightly more overall at the DT position. While Reigns led all DTs in combined TFL+Sacks with 18, Ramrio was just slightly behind at 15 and it was due to 3 tackles for loss less than Reigns. I decided that the act of forcing a fumble and blocking a punt were more valuable as they could lead to points the other way. I also think the extra 11 tackles that Ramrio while not all-telling, still show a more versatile and valuable player than Reigns who was probably the best block shedder but did not do too much.
Ranking the DTs (All-Time)
After Season 1!
1) Mark Ramrio - 1 Pro Bowl, 14 Sacks, 1 DToty (Unofficial)
2) J.J. Reigns - 1 Pro Bowl, 14 Sacks
3) Franklin Harris - 1 Pro Bowl, 12 Sacks
4) Bert Metas - 1 Pro Bowl, 10 Sacks
5) William Nasher - 6 Sacks, 11 Tackles for Loss
6) Trent Bender - 13 Sacks
7) Dan Miller - 10 Sacks, 4 Tackles for Loss
8) Vinny Cox - 7 Sacks, 7 Tackles for Loss
9) Romeo Devitt - 10 Sacks
10) Josh Cameron - 6 Sacks
11) Arbin Asipi - 4 Sacks, 1 Ultimus
12) Gilfred Harrison - 4 Sacks
13) Luke Pierce - 0 Sacks, 6 Tackles, 1 Ultimus
14) Ben Green - 1 Sack, 4 Games Played
Hope it was an enjoyable read! Will be on to Season 2 shortly to cover another draft and more stats and rankings!!!
Former players:
QB Joliet Christ Jr. (HON/BER) (1x Ultimus Champ)
WR Deondre Thomas-Fox (SJS) (2x Ultimus Champ)
QB Joliet L. Christ (SJS) (Hall of Fame) (1x Ultimus Champ)