The Gildon Report -- Dec. 15th

In light of many a fan being bamboozled and ga-ga over Jason Gildong�s 11 sacks last season --- despite only 2 being anywhere near "earned sacks" --- I'm devoting some time this season to monitor the work of the exceptionally average Jason Gildon. Jason has been famous enough with his coverage sacks, flop sacks, the QB-slipped-on-the-wet-turf sacks, the OT totally forgot his blocking assignment sacks, and so on, that the NFL has designated a new statistic, called the "Dong Sack™", in honor of Jason Gildong. (Some fantasy football leagues are incorporating this into their point systems.)

As I alluded to a few weeks ago, the Gildong Report is getting easier and easier to write. It's gotten to the point, that if I really wanted to skimp on my labor, I could pull up last week's report --- change a couple small items --- and voila, it's done.

Three weeks ago at Tennessee, for example, Gildong did NOTHING. No tackles, no assists, no sacks, no pressures, no hits.

Two weeks ago, Gildon came as close to doing nothing as can be accomplished by a starting LB in the National Football League. He finished with a whopping 1 solo stop, 1 assist, 0 sacks, and 0 pressures, in 65 plays from scrimmage. Sixty five.

Last game at Jax was another ghost-like disappearing act by Casper Gildon. In 73 plays from scrimmage --- in which Gildon was on the field for EVERY one of those plays, Gildon recorded 4 solo tackles -- 3 in garbage time at game's end.

This week's loss to the Ravens was more of the same old stuff. Gildon came awfully close to wearing his favorite accessory --- THE COLLAR --- with a quiet-as-a-mouse-taking-a-crap 0 solos, 2 assist "performance".

This was surely one of Gildon' worst games. First, he played and tackled -- er, attempted to tackle -- as though he were wearing boxing gloves. On THREE occasions, he had Priest Holmes dead to rights in the Raven backfield, and on ALL THREE occasions, he badly failed to bring down The Priest for a loss. On two of these, Gildon had BOTH hands on The Priest, who, mind you, weighs only 206 pounds. But Gildon, apparently wearing boxing gloves, could not corral The Priest and bring him down. The one such play was hilarious, because Priest appeared dead for a 5-yard loss on a wide sweep. But he shrugged off Gildon like a harmless gnat, and then gained 3 yards on the play. Priest also turned a 2-yard loss, and a 3-yard loss, into a 2-yard gain and 7-yard gain, respectively. People wonder why our defense is struggling. One reason is that we have a LB who continually allows a certain loss to be turned into positive yardage with arthritic hands that cannot grasp a ballcarrier and bring him down.

Then, there's the pitifully soft play Gildon made on Priest's 64-yard TD jaunt. This was a basic sprint draw that Gildon SHOULD have seen on films and in practice 50 times the previous week. Gildon began the play doing his beloved "wide loop rush". However, it didn't take a LB with Jack Ham's cerebral aptitude to see that this was an OBVIOUS running play. Nevertheless, Gildon refused to hold his ground and help bottle the play by jamming the TE who was blocking him. Instead, Gildon made no effort AT ALL and was easily ridden out of the play by the TE --- as easily as a little old lady wheeling a shopping cart around Wal Mart. This created the gaping hole for Priest to burst thru unfettered on his way for the TD.

Then there's pass pressure. WHAT pass pressure??? Gildon got ZERO pass pressure all day. NONE. He never once got close enough to Banks to touch him with a pole-vault pole. All Gildon did was titty-fight or do his wide loop rush, and never once harassed Banks or even hit Banks.

Earned Sacks: 2
Dong Sacks™: 5.5
Strips, Jars, fumbles caused: 1