Why Can't Chris Hoke Play DE?

I think that this could work – Keisel seems to excel when he plays in spots as opposed to the full time roll. To your point I don’t think we need a guy on the end generating much rush. Just someone to stand in strong and eat up blockers – unleash the LBs!

I was wondering specifically why Nick Eason was starting over Hoke at DE late last year. Maybe there’s some reason for it. Maybe Hoke’s like Keisel: good in short stints, but not an every down player. You’d think between the two, though, we’d have one decent guy.

Maybe they’re thinking, “what if both these guys go down?”

If Hoke got injured playing end, then who would have filled in for Casey? If Roye can jump in there – why not-go for it. Sounds like interesting viewing.

I assume Keisel is faster than Hoke. Would a slower end encourage the outside running game to challenge that end? Of course, our new linebackers are pretty mobile. And the D line was getting punched in the middle last week. Ah well, too bad training camp’s over, I’d like to see it.

Who volunteers to get in touch with Tomlin? ( :

BTW I would love to see this posed to Ed Buchette in his daily Q&A. I think its a great question and could have an obvious answer that we are all really missing, but if it doesn’t, then at least it gets wider play in the Pittsburgh media – and suddenly late in October we’ll pick up the paper and read……

i think that on sure running downs, having Hoke on the end would be very effective. however, i’m not sure about on passing downs. the benefit would be having a more well-rested Keisel to come in on rush downs, coupled with either Woodley or the Silverback rushing from his side as well. in my opinion, using Hoke on the end on ocassion can’t be any worse than what we have going on right now.

Not that I don’t love the idea, but some possible reasons we did not do it.

1. If it ain’t broke – we had the number one rush defense last year, and it wasn’t because our pass defense was shabby. We may love Hoke, but the first stringers did their job and then some.
2. Hoke is a valuable situational player already – Hampton in is not a 3 down player. He is out in every passing situation, which means that Hoke is already seeing a whole lot of the field. If he plays DE then we lose him as a back-up for Hampton.
3. Orpheus – we brought in Roye, to create some rotation at DE and give Kiesel a chance to rest a bit and return to his QB sacking ways.

Don’t get me wrong. I still really like the idea.

Bottom line, I think that to win big games the D-Line needs to be able to generate some pressure on the QB in non-blitzing downs. I think that what ever package allows us to do that with more regularity is very worth exploring. Not sure if Hoke at DE does that by resting Kiesel more, but if it does I am all for it…..