Rookies take their lumps in the NFL, we understand that. But, he was one of the worst RT's in football last season ... that's just a fact. He allowed a lot of hurries and pressures as well as not opening running lanes. All this while the line slid to his side for help a lot and we used TE's and RB's for extra protection. But ... he was a rookie, and inconsistency and hesitancy are to be expected. I did see some improvement from him this year as he was less hesitant.
But, he was foolishly promoted from RT to LT--a far more demanding position. The QB can no longer bail him out when he makes a mistake, and as we were seeing, the QB was crushed quite a lot because of it. While Martin did improve ... it wasn't dramatically. This year he was clearly the worst starting LT in the NFL. Unfortunately, it wasn't really even close. Martin had to realize this. Let's throw out the statistics ... even when he did block guys they walked him back into his QB and had swipes at the football. The pocket was never clean and always tight. On a school grading scale it was a straight "F" and it was clearly his fault. No, the rest of the OL wasn't great ... Clabo was horrible and the rest were poor and inconsistent. But, Martin is simply too weak to play LT in the NFL. Surely he understood this.
We traded for a has-been LT who without knowing the playbook immediately outplayed Martin. The contrast was stark. Martin must have noticed this too. The kid couldn't handle it and had a breakdown. It's not the end of the world. But, he should have handled it differently.
