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Oso Famoso said 05/04, 02:33 PM
You can have Cole. Honestly, he has had 1 good year. He didn't even top out in sacks in the league.

Your complaint about Cole's surrounding cast is also flawed. If he has such poor talent around him, then how is it he has 70 tackles, but only 49 of them are solo? I guess he had to have *somebody* help him with the other 21!

Osi on the other hand had 40 tackles and only 12 assists. He did more on his own than Cole did.

You can talk all you want about Osi's supporting cast, but it was all about Osi in week 3 when he was lined up everywhere along the line and racked up 6 sacks in one night.

The crux of the argument though lies in consistency. I'll take Osi because he's proven himself over his entire career with 231 tackles and 41.5 sacks.

Compare that to Cole's 178 tackles, and 25.5 sacks, and you have a great mismatch.

Granted Cole had a breakout year, but this is the first time he's logged a double digit sack season.

I wouldn't want to hang my hopes on an unproven commodity like that. Which brings us back to why Umenyiora is my choice.

Oso Famoso said 05/05, 03:24 PM
I'm guessing my newbie opponent is unaware of the 24 hour time limit on arguments. But let me use my 1200 characters wisely.

"also Osi had a ohh i dont know a HOF d-end on the opposite side gettin a ton of attention"

There is no way that Osi played with a Hall of Fame player last year because you have to be retired before you are even eligible for a speech at Canton.

Strahan might be HOF eligible when he decides to retire, but he by no means attracted all the attention on the Giants D-line. If anything, Osi wound up attracting attention after his phenomenal 6 sack performance, thus drawing the double team.

Let's also not forget that for the first few games Strahan was in reserve while he got back up to speed on the new playbook.

Osi is also more versatile than Cole. He was played in many different positions by the Giants last year, while Cole was stuck on the end, thus limiting his usefulness and ultimately restricting his usefulness to the team.

If Cole were able to play inside or at the Joker spot like Gocong did last year, Cole might have had a shot at more tackles and sacks. Osi, on the other hand had a greater role on the D.

This is again, why I'd take Osi, not Cole.

Oso Famoso said 05/06, 04:40 PM
I was looking forward to some type of debate here, but I'll just use my closing argument to highlight why Osi is a better choice than Cole.

1) While Cole had only marginally higher stats last year in tackles, Osi had more sacks and has better stats over his entire career. This proves Osi is more consistent and a known quantity.

2) Osi is able to be utilized in many different spots in Spagnuolo's Defense. He can be used as an end, nickel DT, OLB, and so much more. Cole on the other hand is used strictly as a DE, which limits his use to his team.

3) Stats tell some of the story. But you have to know what story which stats are telling you. The fact that Osi had more sacks and just about as many solo tackles tells you that Umenyoria is a force to be reckoned with regardless of who's on the line with him or behind him.

Cole is a great young player who needs to prove himself with at least 2 to 3 more high performance years before he can be considered a consistent performer and not a one year wonder.