Healthy Brandon Albert key to Dolphins’ OL | FinHeaven - Miami Dolphins Forums

Healthy Brandon Albert key to Dolphins’ OL

DKphin

DKphin

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Pro Football Focus ranked the Dolphins’ offensive line as the second worst in the NFL. As always, you take this with a grain of salt given the difficulty in grading offensive line play—unless you’re with the team, in the meeting rooms and know the playbook, you truly don’t know responsibilities or schemes well enough to truly be accurate.
That said, they visibly struggled in both run and pass blocking. Albert himself had to deal with injury issues early in the year, though he bounced back strong towards the end. Not surprisingly, it seemed like the line play got a bit better overall during that span.
Albert dropped some weight this offseason in an effort to stay healthier and on the field. The team will need him to in part to help rookie left guard Laremy Tunsil adjust to defensive pressure at an NFL level. Having a veteran tackle next to a rookie guard is a big help, as Albert can help double up pressure coming inside more effectively than a lesser player.
If course, Tunsil will likely serve as a backup left tackle if Albert goes down with another injury. That’s a hard thing for most rookie offensive linemen to do, and puts an undue amount of pressure on both the player and the quarterback.
Albert going down may not be a disaster, but it would certainly be a huge setback for the line as a whole. Since Albert arrived in 2014, he has missed nine games and the impact was always a line which played far worse and allowed massive pressure on the quarterback’s blind side.
Without a doubt, Tannehill has been hit more times than almost any quarterback in the NFL and while you can lay some of that at the quarterback’s feet for holding the ball too long, the simple fact is most of the blame is on the offensive line and Albert’ absence has been a big reason why.
Even though Albert played 14 games last season, the slow start he had—and the impact it had on the offense—was due to the after-effects of the ACL/MCL injury and subsequent surgery he sustained in Week 10 of the 2014 NFL season.
The line, which was struggling anyway due to injury, lackluster play and the chaos of the aftermath of the Ritchie Incognito-Jonathan Martin scandal, sank into worse doldrums and finished the season in terrible fashion.
Last year, while the line continued to struggle overall, we saw a huge dip in effectiveness when Albert wasn’t in the lineup.
They cannot have that occur again this season. Albert has to finally find a way to stay on the field. When healthy, he had a Pro Bowl-level season. He can continue that this year, but he has to be on the field to do it.
His leadership, experience and overall ability is too critical to both the offense and Ryan Tannehill’s effectiveness.
If Albert is hurt again, things are going to continue to be disappointing for both the Dolphins and their fans.
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http://www.todayspigskin.com/afc/miami-dolphins/healthy-brandon-albert-key-dolphins-ol/
 
At least we have a better option if he goes down.
 
Easily...the line crumbled when he went down, but as finbully points out at least we have better depth now.
 
Dallas Thomas out of a starting and primary backup gig is crucial.

Branden Albert's health can't be counted on but let's just count our blessing for now. I'm so happy Tunsil is here and fell to us. Eventually Albert should slide inside... I'd like it to be now and let tunsil develop at LT. But whatever - the best 5 will play. James' health is also key, we had so abysmal depth it killed us.

Douglas should be a decent backup at guard or center.

I think Turner's potential with decent players around him should get him the starting RG spot.. Bushrod can be a back up for virtually anywhere. Urbik could be solid inside depth. I would explore Turner at rt also in case of emergency
 
Albert has been a very good and underrated LT since his days in KC. Very solid player.
 
easily the key to the line. need to have an anchor there. been a waste of money
 
6-1 when Albert, Pouncey and James are fit. Tunsil can't be any worse than a last ranked Dallas Thomas and hoping we can get average at worse RG play from either Turner, Douglas or Ulbrich. Just need to commit to the run on offense and stop the run on defense and the team should be in a pretty good place provided, in an unlikely scenario, our QB doesn't become a turnover machine.
 
"Healthy Brandon Albert key to Dolphins’ OL" ..... and a key to dolphins success this year.
 
Picking the correct six numbers is key to winning the Powerball jackpot.
 
miami365 said:
6-1 when Albert, Pouncey and James are fit. Tunsil can't be any worse than a last ranked Dallas Thomas and hoping we can get average at worse RG play from either Turner, Douglas or Ulbrich. Just need to commit to the run on offense and stop the run on defense and the team should be in a pretty good place provided, in an unlikely scenario, our QB doesn't become a turnover machine.
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this is shocking for two reasons, first I didn't know that, and it's a stellar record, and two, just 7games? wow!
 
Phinatic8u said:
I think it's just last year?

I honestly don't know off the top of my head.
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At no point should anyone make the argument that an offense that scored 21 or more points only three times during the 2015 season can be viewed as acceptable. However, there was a small window of games the past two seasons that we'll examine that present a glimmer of hope for Miami.

I'm referring to the seven games the cornerstones of the Dolphins' offensive line - left tackle Branden Albert, center Mike Pouncey, and right tackle Ja'Wuan James - actually started and finished a game together.

We're talking about the games where Albert's right knee was healthy, Pouncey's hip and foot wasn't an issue, and the period early in his career where James didn't miss more than half the season with a foot injury.

During those seven games the Dolphins managed a 6-1 record.

In 2014 the Dolphins beat Chicago (27-14) and Jacksonville (27-13) on the road, pummeled San Diego (37-0) and the one loss was to Green Bay (27-24) on a last-second play where the defense (cough, cough Philip Wheeler) let a victory escape the team's grasp.

So in games where Albert, Pouncey and James started and finished in 2014 the Dolphins were 3-1.

Flip the page to 2015 and the Dolphins produced a 3-0 record in games Albert, Pouncey and James started and finished the contests.

Miami beat Washington 17-10 in the season opener courtesy of Jarvis Landry's punt return for a touchdown. The Dolphins destroyed Tennessee 38-10 on the road in Dan Campbell's first game as interim head coach, and Miami pummeled Houston 44-26.

James suffered his foot injury in Miami's lost to New England the next week.
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http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/...roof-ryan-tannehill-perfo-20160405-story.html
 
Geforce said:
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/...roof-ryan-tannehill-perfo-20160405-story.html
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Yeah, that's good stuff. But looking at those teams, Chicago, Jacksonville, San Diego, Washington and Tennessee were the wins. I love the points totals which indicate that the offense was clicking ... but those are not the most impressive teams. Our loss to the Packers, unquestionably a good team, was very close. Definitely a much better team with our horses healthy. I wonder how the league would perceive the Dolphins and Tannehill if we had our whole OL healthy for an entire year?
 
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