Marching Orders... Interesting Points

[53Fan]

Originally Posted by 44Deezel

B-Mitch actually said something during tonight's recap show on 980 Sports that I have been saying for a while. I'm not usually a big fan of his, but he said something to the extent of:

When the Skins had dominant O and D lines back in the day - the Hogs and guys like Mann, Butz, Manley, etc on the D-line, it didn't matter who they put behind those lines. It seemed like every QB and RB did well (Theismann, Williams, Schroeder, Rypien, Riggs, Rogers, Byner, Sanders, Ervins) and little receivers like the Smurfs got the job done.

I think it's one of the single most impressive accomplishments that Gibbs won 3 Super Bowls with 3 different QBs. Noll only won with Bradshaw, Shannihan only won with Elway, Walsh only won with Montana and watch how many Belichik wins without Brady.

It was Gibbs, but it was also the Skins organization and their commitment to building from the lines out. Good line play makes everyone else look better.

Conversely, you can have (as Mitchell said) Darrell Green on one side, Deion Sanders on the other (in their prime) and Ed Reed and Troy Polamalu as your safeties, but if you can't pressue the opposing QB, even they will get picked apart.

I like playmakers as much as the next guy, but I can get behind a model like the Titans have. If not for some uncharacteristic turnovers, they would have been playing in the AFC championship last week. We had as good as or better talent at the skill positions.

Great post Deezel. Our 2 biggest gripes this year were 1- We can't protect the QB 2- We can't sack the QB. As others have pointed out, the Hogs were not all high draft picks, but they were good picks. We need to evaluate talent better and make more picks for the lines. Drafting one linemen a year isn't going to cut it. Some other teams have drafted 3 or more linemen in 1 year. When's the last time we've done that? It seems like we trade our picks away or make picks in other areas, then take 1 or 2 token linemen. How hard is it to understand the importance of a strong line on both sides of the ball? It wouldn't bother me if we spent most of our picks the next 2 years on linemen. I love Marcus Washington and would hate to see him leave because I don't think he's done yet. But for the good of the team, we can't keep handcuffing ourselves with trying to hold on to aging players with high salaries who can't perform because of nagging injuries. I would really like to see us use our higher picks on linemen and then either use the lower picks on some other needs or address them through FA's. And I don't mean FA's who are now looking for the biggest paydays of their career.