Wild Card Weekend Game Day Thread(s)

[GTripp0012]

Originally Posted by CRedskinsRule

One thing about "pocket presence", if you have the same line every down, you develop a knowledge of how each OL guy is going to handle their responsibilities. One of the big problems with the shuffling that we did is that Campbell, and the backs who had to pick up blitzers could not comfortably develop an idea of who would pick up which defender. Cohesion along the OL is as important as the quality of any individual player. Campbell certainly missed opportunities, and stepped up when he should have rolled out etc etc, but the OL flux we had this year would have given the best quarterbacks difficulties.

Yep, you've hit on the biggest issue here. In Campbell's case, it's not really pocket presence vs. not pocket presence (all staticstics show that Campbell is average to below average in these respects going back to college. he's obviously no JaMarcus Russell back there), it's the wild week-to-week fluctuations in what the line can and can't do.

In Warner's case, neither Bridges nor Mike Gandy is a better left tackle option than, say, Levi Jones or Stephon Heyer. But because the rest of the line does a fairly good job (particularly Lutui and I think Sendlein and Wells are underrated), Warner can compensate for having a weak pair of pass blocking tackles with his great feel for the offense and a quick release.

If Bugel hadn't fallen in love with a guy who obviously wasn't NFL caliber (Will Montgomery), and we had gone with Rinehart immediately, things may have been different in terms of the line. Injuries forced our hand at RG, but we also spent the entire month of October just not playing our best line, which is perhaps the one thing that happened to this offense that can't be pinned on non-coaching related factors.