Fairley vs. Dareus

The general consensus seems to be that Dareus is a better, more consistent player than Fairley. I understand that the common perception is that Fairley takes plays off, is a one-year wonder, etc. and that Dareus has been a solid performer throughout his career at Alabama. I also realize that Dareus played in a 3-4 scheme while Fairley played in a 4-3, which can be attributed to some of the productivity differential. However, Dareus frequently played defensive end while Chapman played the DT spot most of last year, as Cody did the year before. There have been plenty of ends in a 3-4 scheme with much better production than Dareus.

My question is, based on production, how can people objectively come to this conclusion? In his entire career (2 years)at Alabama, Dareus had 66 total tackles, 11 sacks and 20 tackles for loss. In 2010 alone, Fairley had 56 tackles, 11.5 sacks, and 24 tackles for loss. Even in 2009, when Fairley was supposedly a non-factor, he had 28 tackles, which is 5 less than Dareus had in each of his two seasons at Alabama. That's quite a discrepancy in productivity, no matter the scheme. Simply watch the games and see who was the bigger difference-maker. Without Fairley up front, Auburn does not win the national championship, even with Newton. One could argue that he was Newton's equal on the opposite side of the ball in game-changing ability. Can anything remotely close to the same be said for Dareus? Again, it's not really a knock on Dareus because I do think he's a good player, but can you think of a time when you saw Dareus (other than knocking McCoy out of the NC game) and said, "Wow, that guy's a game-changer"? Was there ever really a debate last year that Fairley was the best DT in the country, or any conversation during Dareus' career about him being the best player on the field?

Can Bama fans honestly say they were not frustrated with Dareus' consistency last year? I have several friends that I watched games with that complained of Dareus not playing hard enough and being the disruptive force that he should have been. I realize he was banged up, but Fairley suffered from a shoulder injury during the season as well. Yet, we hear criticism of Fairley for taking plays off and only doing it in one year. When has Dareus ever really gotten it done? Dareus may be 20 pounds heavier than Fairley, but can that really account for this level of statistical variance? Reasonable minds may disagree, but I fail to see the logic here.