Anthony Steen doing 'whatever's best for the team' in Miami Dolphins' offensive line | Page 3 | FinHeaven - Miami Dolphins Forums

Anthony Steen doing 'whatever's best for the team' in Miami Dolphins' offensive line

Here's one thing that I think may benefit Miami in terms of adding a quality G or C prior to the start of the regular season. I was unaware of this until recently, but the NFL changed the way teams cut players to get to (53), by making it all one day (Sept 3) instead of the additional 2 cut days prior. Many teams, Miami included, will learn about new and young players and end up cutting proven players to save $, build for the future, etc., and having more time to do so will help Miami's cause here. It may be wishful thinking, but if you're targeted in on 1 or 2 positions you need to improve (at least depth), I think you stand a great chance at adding valuable depth on Sept 3, 2017. The theory (according to the guys on NFL radio) is teams will have more time to evaluate guys they are unsure of - and if it saves them $ to keep them and say goodbye to the veteran, they'll have more time to confirm it's a good decision. Not sure if that all makes sense, but bottom line, I can see Miami adding someone pretty decent on the single cut down day.
 
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Versatility is the key to being a backup offensive lineman in this league. He should get a lot of playing time with the injury questions we have at guard and center.
 
Dajesus said:
.5, so that is pretty good, but sack's don't define G play unless you give up a lot. Most sacks come from outside, and even when it comes from a DT its usually because the outside forced the QB to step up in a sack. Where Tunsil struggled was run blocking, and that is what defines G play. Guys that get to the 2nd level consistently to take on LBs after chipping a DT are guys who are stand out Gs.

http://stats.washingtonpost.com/fb/playerstats.asp?id=24181
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That's very good if accurate. Yea Tunsil was a tackle playing guard but at least he keep our QB on his feet so i give him credit for that. He should ready shine at LT his natural position. Remember the guys he replaced at guard ? Pure garbage.
 
cuchulainn said:
8 games... he was Kyle Long's backup. Long went down with a nasty ankle injury mid-season.
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Ah, yes. Thanks. :thumbsup I had forgotten as that was a reason I had reviewed more tape of him in Arizona & Tampa than I did of Chicago.
 
Sons Of Shula said:
Ah, yes. Thanks. :thumbsup I had forgotten as that was a reason I had reviewed more tape of him in Arizona & Tampa than I did of Chicago.
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So .5 and he played 8 games double that and it's 1 sack. Not really a big deal. The point is Ryan should have time to pass, and there won't be much of a drop off if any at LG. I know he won't make the probowl, but if he is average to above average we will be fine.
 
If Larsens is average to above average and plays every game in addition to Tunsil playing all the games at LT that in and of itself will be a huge upgrade. I also expect Bushrod to have a better season than last, while playing every game. Continuity is so important for an OL's performance. The day we get consistency from the Center position is the day our OL catapults into the top 15.
 
we've been working on our OL for what??? It seems like since the days of Larry Little!

It's the hallmark of a pretender -- they can never muster the resources to solve their core problems.

Yea. Perhaps a tad overstated. And I hope so. But still.......... Relying of Pouncy is akin to lookin for a Jesus aberration in Davie.

Oh I forgot -- they have those all the time there....
 
Dajesus said:
So .5 and he played 8 games double that and it's 1 sack. Not really a big deal. The point is Ryan should have time to pass, and there won't be much of a drop off if any at LG. I know he won't make the probowl, but if he is average to above average we will be fine.
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Doesn't really work that way though for a 16 game schedule. The year before he gave up 2.5 in 10 games and before that 4.5 sacks in 16 games. A better projection would have to have expected 3 sacks. Not a huge problem maybe but he wasn't as good as Tunsil despite PFF ranking him so. Do agree though that all we need is for him to be proficient.
 
Atila said:
Good post.

Everyone complaining and bitching with no plan, no hindsight, no real reasoning. They drafted Tunsil in the 1st last season... Asiata was drafted this year in the 5th when apparently a lot of you had him with a 2nd or 3rd round grade. In terms of free agency, what did you want them to do? Pay $10mil/year for the guys available? I am happy they didn't.

They were handcuffed at center this season - you all bitching know this, right? But we weren't handcuffed in that we are gambling and hoping he stays healthy... we are handcuffed because of money, not because of his talent. We had to give Pouncey a chance this season because it wouldn't have made sense from a money standpoint to cut him this year, the dead money would be ridiculous this year. Next year he comes off the books if he can't stay healthy.

So we have both our tackles pretty much set and we just talked about why we wouldn't move on from Pouncey in 2017, so back to the other two positions guard. As I said, free agency guard money was ridiculous and it was the right move to not overpay for those guys. As a result we got Larsen, who I have openly been much higher on than pretty much anyone here (hopefully I'm right), and we get Bushrod back to hopefully play better in his 2nd time ever at guard... we also drafted a guard that you were all very high on coming into the draft.

So everyone bitching - what exactly did you expect them to do differently? I am not expecting big things from this OL because I don't expect Pouncey to play very much which will leave a big hole in the middle... but I also realize they weren't going to reasonably address 4-5 different spots effectively in one offseason and it would NOT have made sense to address the center position this offseason. I think we're making more good moves than bad, and adding more talent than losing. At this point, what more can we ask?
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One thing to consider is that we ate a big chunk of dead cap ($4M?) by jettisoning Branden Albert and to sign Larsen.

As I said when we signed Albert, he is a good LT and I liked the player, but I had two concerns, 1) he had a history of injuries and at his age it would only get worse, and 2) we overpayed. The guy already lived in Miami. There were 3 good LT's out there, Albert, Monroe and Veldheer. Monroe was the least gettable and the worst get because he wanted to stay in Baltimore and ended up missing many more games to injuries than the other two. Arguably, Alberts was the best, although Veldheer seems to have been durable and played at a high level, so that point is arguable. We definitely overpaid. Moving on from Alberts definitely cost us money. I was correct on both points, but more importantly, we need to learn from our mistakes.

I get why you didn't want to overpay for OL this year. But the reason the market was so high was that there weren't many OL prospects worth a darn in the draft this year and it looks like this was a phenomenal defensive draft. While I'm a huge proponent of drafting good OL, this simply wasn't the draft for it. IMHO, we made the correct call drafting defense with our first three picks. We also made a great pick of Asiaata in the 5th. Kudos to the front office for making the correct calls there.

But, we were backed into a corner by the failures of the past with the OL. It's 5/11ths of our starting offense, and unlike many players those 5 tend to play 100% of the snaps while healthy. The positions may not be glamorous, but they are impactful and important. If we had 3 holes (LG, RG, C) and our only veteran transaction was swapping out the good but injury-prone Albert for the journeyman Larsen--for the same Salary Cap impact--then we definitely didn't do enough. Where would we have found the money? Well maybe not sign/keep both Timmons AND Misi. Maybe not reward our young DE quite so much for 5.5 sacks on a DL that has Suh and Wake commanding all the attention. There were ways to make getting a good guard happen. We chose to prioritize other areas. But, when we watch the OL this year, its a good thing to keep in mind, IMHO.
 
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I'm fine with having some mediocre linemen. I'm not fine with having a bunch of BAD linemen.

I'm even less fine with having the worst starting interior OL in the NFL. Fortunately, that is no longer an issue (see my signature for details).
 
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