Quote:
Originally Posted by Warren85Ellard
As good as our defense looks, our offensive line scares the living shit out of me. I don't mean to preach to the choir or beat a dead horse, but it blows my mind how little focus has been given to the o-line by our front office. It seems like somebody is counting on Joe Bugle to turn every non-drafted offensive lineman from the University of Maryland into an NFL caliber player.....great strategy. Is anybody seriously comfortable with anyone from the second unit and third o-line units getting anywhere near the field during the regular season? Do Cody Glenn and Robert Henson have any chance of making this team? There weren't any offensive lineman worthy of being picked instead of them?
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I know what you mean about beating a dead horse; I kinda feel the same way when I re-hash why (I believe) the FO did what it could to fortify the line. Our starting line was able to handle the division opponents and the lesser competition of the first 8 weeks last year, it was only once Samuels went down, and we faced truly elite defenses (a bad combination even with the best backups) that our line play truly stunk it up. The FO basically swept out our backups - who were useless, and replaced them with younger backups who we are now relying upon. Will the strategy work, we are almost ready to find out. Personally I am hoping our 1st line will rest out the Baltimore game to give the backups a real taste of NFL D's (at full game speed)
As to the Glenn and Henson picks, if any OL picked between those two spots turns in to a high caliber backup Left Tackle (our largest need) then ok, the FO blew it. I don't think that will be the case, and I expect both players were drafted to bring youth and aggression to the special teams. Something you would not find if we had used either of those picks on an O-line guy.
The Skins fan base is so used to seeing Snyder throw money to solve a problem (and then complaining about it after he does), that it is really hard for us to wrap our minds around the fact that there may not have been a one stop - throw money and get the quality player we all look for. So when the FO doesn't do the splashy move (like getting Buffalo's tackle at the cost of a high draft pick) we hear that the issue isn't being addressed. In reality the line (particularly the 2nd stringers) is a completely different unit than that which failed down the stretch. Will the strategy of relying on draft picks and young players work, who knows. But it's not fair or correct to say that our Oline is the same unit that failed miserably at the end of last year.