Look at Kam Chancellor (FS) from Virginia Tech. Big kid with a nasty attitude.

lol what? You put the nickel in because the offense is in passing situations and a DB is going to be needed to cover extra receiving threats. It doesnt matter who the linebackers are, a DB is better for coverage. We only have 2 LBs on the field for nickel, so is your complaint that the 7th round draft pick Diles is not as talented as the 1st and 2nd round picks in Cushing and Ryans?

Diles does not seal the backside. If he did, you would certainly see more than two tackles for a loss in the run game. Conclusory statements like that are obnoxious in these arguments because most people will just take it at face value since they don’t look for such things during the game. To the extent the backside has been sealed, it has been Mario or Smith doing it.

Nor does he fill his assignments. For evidence, look at the NFL.com gamebooks for the Texans games, specifically at the first and second-down runs. There are 60 to the left and 66 to the right. That is a fairly good shorthand (though not perfect, since it doesn’t correlate exactly with weak v. strong). The overwhelming majority — better than 80% by my guess — of the tackles on those plays are made either by Cushing or by Pollard and/or another DB (usually Quin). That says, to me at least, that our SLB is generally getting there when the play comes his way, but our WLB is not.

Note, I’m not discrediting Diles for his tackles last year and then bitching about a lack of tackles this year as if they are two sides of the same coin. It’s two completely different arguments. I discredit Diles’ play last year because, as a Sam, his tackle numbers were going to be good regardless of his overall play, which was not. But people gave him a pass and assumed he was playing well b/c of those #s. (For comparison, I think Cushing is playing great in run defense, though I don’t think his tackle numbers vis-a-vis leading the team are entirely accurate. So, it’s possible to play well at Sam and have a lot of tackles and it’s possible to play poorly at Sam and still get an inordinately high number.)

My point in mentioning the lack of tackles as a WLB is not to compare him to Cushing, but to demonstrate that he’s not producing and, now that he’s not at a position that hides his lack of productivity with tackles, he’s not doing ANYTHING to warrant people thinking he’s playing well. He’s worthless when teams throw on second down, which they are doing with increasing frequency (again, check the Gamebooks), generally going at him. He takes horrible angles, which is the type of thing that doesn’t show up in the stats other than to keep him from showing up in the stats. Etc. Point being, the only thing you’ve got to hang your “he’s playing well” or even “he’s good enough” argument on is… um… his cost? The fact that the other two are very good? It’s certainly not for his actual contributions in the run defense or the pass defense.

Your argument about “top caliber talent at all 3 linebacker positions” is obviously a strawman. The argument isn’t “top caliber” or “whatever Diles gives” as the only two choices. Nor is the argument whether Diles is top caliber or not, since we both agree he’s not. But, to the actual point, I can name a number of 4-3 teams who have average or better talent at all three LB spots.
Detroit: Peterson, Foote, Sims
Cinci: Maualuga, D. Jones, Rivers
Jax: Durant, Ingram, D. Smith
Oakland: Brown, Morrison, Howard

I would take the third-best of any of those trios over Diles in a heartbeat.

And I’m not expecting “top 5” performances, either. I am expecting no one on the field to be a liability (i.e. Faggins and, to a lesser-but-still-real extent, Diles).

You fail to give the other guy any credit, any LB in the league is going to struggle to cover a Dallas Clark or a Vernon Davis.