Does Chris Borland Make Patrick Willis the Expendable Crew Member?

St. Louis Rams defensive line Aaron Donald had a fine rookie season; one deserving of defensive rookie of the year. However, had San Francisco 49ers linebacker Chris Borland played in a couple more game he probably would not have won the award. Some would say he still shouldn't have, that Borland did enough in the games he did play in.

While that point can be argued all day long, it does appear like he may have done enough to make fellow linebacker Patrick Willis expendable.

via Reddit

Getting rid of a player like Willis is not something to be taken lightly. During his eight seasons in the league he has made at least 100+ tackles in six of them. One of the others he had 97 in and the other was this past season when he was injured and only played in six games.

He's been a first team All-Pro five times for a reason. He is also 30 years old, will start to see a decline soon (assuming he will stay healthy), and cost the team a pretty penny under the salary cap ($8.3 million).

Chris Borland played so well when he was on the field it would be foolish to have him on the bench. Even though he did not play until after Willis was hurt and missed the final two games after getting injured himself he still led the way on defense for the 49ers.

#49ers Chris Borland to the IR. He leads the team in total tackles (128), solo tackles (83), asst (45) and TFL (8) after 14 games, 8 starts
— Mindi Bach (@MBachCSN) December 20, 2014

Getting rid of a good, productive players is hard to do, but if you have one that is just as good, is a lot younger (Borland is 24; Willis 30)., and cost the team a lot less (Borland will make $530K next season; Willis $7.1 million) it makes sense to see to try to deal the older one.

As good as Willlis has been there is a good chance that someone will be willing to trade for him.

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