Thomas/Jansen article

[NYCskinfan82]

Injuries happen plain and simple, you just have to deal with them nobody likes them.

[GoSkins!]

I think that last year was a freak year for injuries on the line. Our RT, and RG got hurt for the year. The primary backup RT got hurt (Wade). Our LG was new to the team. Our replacement RG was a use to playing tackle. Somehow we still ended up in the middle of the pack on offense and in the playoffs.

What concerns me most is Jansen. Not because of his age, but because I was sitting in the stands right there when he broke his ankle. It looked terrible. It was turned all the way around. I have had friends that have had similar breaks and they lost some mobility because of it. If this is the case with Jansens ankle, he is going to have more of a problem with pass protection (less in run blocking). I'll be hoping for the best, but I'm sure he will be better than Heyer. The kid did a good job for being an undrafted rookie, but he had to have help all the time. Jansen can usually handle things alone.

[J. Spanky]

one thing i want to note:

people keep using the term "freak injury". in my opinion, there are virtually no freak injuries. there are jsut injuries. this is football. players get injured. the job of the front office is to ensure that the drop-off in ability between a starter and the back-up is as insignificant as possible.

lack of depth on defense killed us in '06. lack of depth on the o-line could have killed us in '07 but do to the resliience of some tough dudes, like wade, we were able to pull through. however, it really showed in the playoff game. the right side of the line was way over-matched.

hopefully we can find another rookie free agent who can servicable on the level that heyer was last year. but don't think jansen's injury was a 'freak' occurrence that won't happen again. that, or something similar, can, and in all likelihood will, happen to somebody.