Too many variables to adequately evaluate free agent pursuits. With all the potential suitors and different priorities for each player, I'm not about to claim we could have or should have gotten this guy or that guy.
But I was posting here on draft day and salivating as Khalif Barnes plummeted closer and closer to our pick at #46. There was a thread with many of us in glee when he was available. Matt Roth is an exemplary hardtrying DE who should have a long career. But no one is going to convince me now or on draft day that Khalif Barnes wasn't a superior pick or football player. He has feet and a mean streak. You can win titles with Barnes at LT. With Barnes at LT and Carey at RT we would have potential bookend young athletic tackles, and none of this positional monkeying around garbage like trying to pretend Carey is a LT.
I'm relieved the OL ineptitude has focused on the talent level of the players and dispelled plenty of the lunacy that Hudson Houck could pull off the chicken salad trick, i.e. Gary Stevens. Rob Konrad is absolutely correct in Wedensday's Herald, saying you need two dominant linemen and the Dolphins have none, blaming it on Jimmy Johnson's old philosophy of not drafting linemen higher than the 3rd. Konrad also may have a point that Carey is best suited to guard. His frame screams he is a guard. As a Cane he played much better at RT as a junior than guard as a senior. But he was banged up as a senior all year, in fact missing virtually all of the second half of the FSU bowl game other than a few short yardage plays.
Extreme kudos to Keith Sims for pointing out Carey demonstrated he can't handle outside speed rushers at LT. Precisely. I was among the only posters on this forum critical of Carey's play at LT this preseason. It simply didn't matter how he was faring versus the guy in front of him, looking at the technique and positioning stamped without debate he would get mangled at LT by the top RDEs.
We need top shelf athletes at OL and we'll get some. These dedicated blue collar goofs don't dominate on the OL anymore, not with increasing size and talent level on the defensive fronts. The first criteria should be to ignore any semblance of an overachiever.
But I was posting here on draft day and salivating as Khalif Barnes plummeted closer and closer to our pick at #46. There was a thread with many of us in glee when he was available. Matt Roth is an exemplary hardtrying DE who should have a long career. But no one is going to convince me now or on draft day that Khalif Barnes wasn't a superior pick or football player. He has feet and a mean streak. You can win titles with Barnes at LT. With Barnes at LT and Carey at RT we would have potential bookend young athletic tackles, and none of this positional monkeying around garbage like trying to pretend Carey is a LT.
I'm relieved the OL ineptitude has focused on the talent level of the players and dispelled plenty of the lunacy that Hudson Houck could pull off the chicken salad trick, i.e. Gary Stevens. Rob Konrad is absolutely correct in Wedensday's Herald, saying you need two dominant linemen and the Dolphins have none, blaming it on Jimmy Johnson's old philosophy of not drafting linemen higher than the 3rd. Konrad also may have a point that Carey is best suited to guard. His frame screams he is a guard. As a Cane he played much better at RT as a junior than guard as a senior. But he was banged up as a senior all year, in fact missing virtually all of the second half of the FSU bowl game other than a few short yardage plays.
Extreme kudos to Keith Sims for pointing out Carey demonstrated he can't handle outside speed rushers at LT. Precisely. I was among the only posters on this forum critical of Carey's play at LT this preseason. It simply didn't matter how he was faring versus the guy in front of him, looking at the technique and positioning stamped without debate he would get mangled at LT by the top RDEs.
We need top shelf athletes at OL and we'll get some. These dedicated blue collar goofs don't dominate on the OL anymore, not with increasing size and talent level on the defensive fronts. The first criteria should be to ignore any semblance of an overachiever.
