Grading our players: D. Levy

[lionstop1]

Lets get this going again. Lets talk about D. Levy. He has emerged as one of our better defenders. Whats his grade?


Use the grading scale I've provided below and from there, I will get the average score for each player after a day or two.

Rank 1-10 with 10 being the highest. Include percentages (.1.2.3.4.5) if you believe player is between certain levels.

1- Bad player. Should not be on a NFL roster.
2- Tackling dummy or jock carrier.
3- Nothing more than a practice squad player.
4- Low level backup player.
5- Quality backup or role player with no starting potential.*
6- Starter but easily upgradeable.
7- Mid level starter, with potential as a high level starter.
8- High level starter, with All-Pro potential.
9- Consistent All-Pro player.
10- Potential Hall of Fame player.

 

[TwoCents22]

8.8

 

[Rollingthndr]

I give him a rock solid 8. Two consistent years of production

 

[Quackerjacked]

8.3

Still hasn't made all-pro and still misses too many tackles. He's a beast though.

 

[Old Lion]

8.9 - He is by far the best on this team and one of the best in the league. I could not care less about how the all-pro voting goes. Now that is away from the crap 9 and in a real scheme, the sky is the limit. He would be the last person on this defense I would want to see go. And that includes Suh.

 

[Dr. Evil-er]

8.25
Gotta be realistic. High level starter with potential =yes, consistent All Pro = no. He's closer to the 8 than he is to the 9 at this point.

 

[gandydancer]

7.99 I would give him the .01 if he covered the big body athletic TE's better.

 

[broncosmitty]

8.1

Never thought Id grade Levy this high in his career. Good chance I never will again. He makes plays that are given to him, but our D's biggest weakness is his coverage. His failure to wrap up also led to 3 of the 5 biggest plays against us this year.

He's improved by leaps and bounds. But he's a supporting actor, not a lead man.

 

[TwoCents22]

And I thought everyone was gonna go crazy and overrate Levy with high 9's. Actually, the opposite has happened, and I think you guys are selling him short.

Stop, this is where I think your descriptions are a little off. You should remove the certaintys(saying All Pro), and uncertainty (using the word 'potential'). IMO this was the same difficulty in rating Stafford, as according to your scale, he's a 10 because he has "hall of fame potential", but in reality his production/play is a 7 or 8.

Sure Levy wasn't a first team All Pro. But he didn't even make the Pro Bowl, either. But on a scale, 1-10, he's closer to a 9 than he is an 8.

 

[broncosmitty]

He'll never be close to a 9.

 

[TwoCents22]

I disagree. I look at it like madden ratings, but with a decimal. If Levy was an 80 on the upcoming Madden everyone would be pissed.

 

[TwoCents22]

I don't have time to look at all the ratings that sTop has gathered, but at a quick estimation it looks like everyone is rating our offense ahead of our defense. Or at the least the avg numbers are very close so far. And they shouldn't be.

Levy is the 2nd best player on a top 3 defense. If we rated our defense using the same scale, it would be AT LEAST a 9.0. You guys as a collective unit are saying we only have 1 guy on defense who is above a 9? The numbers don't work out. Just sayin'.

 

[jdwills126]

9
Last two season he should have been in the All Pro game.

Can't compare him to 3-4 OLB as they end up with more sacks but Levy can pretty much do it all. Cover backs and TEs. Blitz and get into the backfield. I would have no problem calling him the MVP of the Lions defense. He never has to be replaced for a specialist.

 

[tpaulus_2]

8.8

He's a monster who makes plays all over the field and has the splash plays, too. He almost led the league in INTs last season- only Richard Sherman had more picks than Levy did. He dropped Eddie Lacy for a safety at the home opener this season, it was awesome.

He's still got room to improve- he took a big step back in coverage this year- but overall he's among the best few 4-3 OLBs in the league...

 

[Quackerjacked]

His coverage is not a liability. It's so good that we got too fancy in coverageand got burned by it. the worst one I remember was him single covering Dez Bryant on a long developing crossing pattern. He had decent coverage but missed the tackle. If he was anything less than great in coverage that scheme would never be considered.

 

[broncosmitty]

It should never be considered. That was horrible. (Liability is too strong of a word. His coverage ability is his strength.)

Our season ended because Levy can't wrap up. (This has always been his weakness. Partly because of size imo.) Biggest Lions weakness on D, IMO, is coverage on Tight Ends. And that falls on DeAndre and a strong safety we haven't graded yet.

He's been our best coverage backer for six years. Don't mean to come across as Anti-DeAndre. Suh and Quin are the only two guys on D that I consider better at their respective positions. (Slay and Ziggy hopefully will be soon.)

 

[RobBase]

8.2

He's really benefits from our Dline.

 

[RobBase]

We could have had Lauranitis. Instead Mayhew took Delmas then Levy in the third, then signed Tulloch.

I really wanted Lil Animal back then. Wonder how things might have been different.

 

[Dr. Evil-er]

I don't have time to look at all the ratings that sTop has gathered, but at a quick estimation it looks like everyone is rating our offense ahead of our defense. Or at the least the avg numbers are very close so far. And they shouldn't be.

Levy is the 2nd best player on a top 3 defense. If we rated our defense using the same scale, it would be AT LEAST a 9.0. You guys as a collective unit are saying we only have 1 guy on defense who is above a 9? The numbers don't work out. Just sayin'.

Grading out individual players and then grading out the team defense are two completely separate things. You can very easily have no players that individually rate higher than 8 and have the top team defense in the league. You could also have several players grading out as 10's and be a bottom feeder. Its a matter of where the holes are with those guys who are <=6.

If as a team you don't have any significant holes, and the Lions didn't have that in 2014, then you will have an excellent team defense. Or at least have strength areas, like our D-line, that help to mask the weaker areas, such as the back seven.

That's what makes getting a long term deal done with Suh so important. His level of play helps to improve that of everyone else. I'm not sure that Levy on a team without Suh in front of him would score out as high even as he is here on this thread.

 

[lionstop1]

Wow, this is was I was hoping to get from these threads. Interesting reads here.