Who's More Important: Moss or Samuels

[GTripp0012]

Originally Posted by Schneed10

I do agree that you lose a ton trying to run to the left without Samuels, which has absolutely been our bread and butter.

But do you really lose that much in pass protection with Heyer? Samuels is better, no doubt. But I can't use just the Detroit game to judge Heyer at LT. He's done a real good job at times when pass blocking, albeit from the right side most of the time. I guess I'm saying you take a step down from Samuels to Heyer in pass protection, but I don't think you develop a complete weak link there.

So I don't think the deep pass automatically goes bye bye with Samuels out. But I think losing the success in running to the left that all by itself makes Samuels more important than Moss. We friggin gut teams when we run left, it's how Portis has gotten most of his yardage (which leads the friggin league).

Tonight, I think a Samuels absence would CRUSH us (their pass rush is insane and their run D is already good enough with Heyer's ineptitude there to aid them). Over the long haul, Samuels's absence would hurt more than Moss, but only slightly.

You lose a ton with Heyer in there. Heyer can protect well enough right now to handle RT. At LT, he's totally overmatched (this year, at least).

You also have to start Jansen (as opposed to Heyer) on the other side, but at least that's not the side that causes those sack/strip turnovers.

It's a matchup that a defense can exploit on us, and if the Lions can exploit it, I'm confident that every other team in the league also can.

Randle El's not the deep threat can replace Moss, but obviously, we can still create big plays in the passing game without Moss. The loss of Moss would hurt us most because the opponent wouldn't have to keep a safety deep and totally out of the running game, but Cooley could still get open, and so could Randle El. Plus, it would open up a place in the starting lineup to get some critical playing time for one of our younger guys (probably Devin Thomas).