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OL strategy

Jamesw

Jamesw

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As we all know, our OL has been a weakness for many seasons. I had an opportunity to ask a former NFL player ( played with the Raiders, until blowing out his knee), why we always seem to falter with our OL picks. He made 3 very good points:

1. We must stop expecting our OL rookies to come in, start and be great immediately. In his day (long ago) rookies were able to sit for 1-2 seasons and learn. They were given limited game experience during that time to understand/experience the pro game.

2. We must allow them to stay at the position they played in college or at the very least, play 1 position. This is particularly true in their rookie season.

3. Rookies need veterans to mentor them and ”take them under their wing”. This is extremely important and something we haven’t seen enough of.

Hopefully McDaniel and our OL coaches have a similar mind-set regarding these 3 issues.

Phins Up!
 
Jamesw said:
As we all know, our OL has been a weakness for many seasons. I had an opportunity to ask a former NFL player ( played with the Raiders, until blowing out his knee), why we always seem to falter with our OL picks. He made 3 very good points:

1. We must stop expecting our OL rookies to come in, start and be great immediately. In his day (long ago) rookies were able to sit for 1-2 seasons and learn. They were given limited game experience during that time to understand/experience the pro game.

2. We must allow them to stay at the position they played in college or at the very least, play 1 position. This is particularly true in their rookie season.

3. Rookies need veterans to mentor them and ”take them under their wing”. This is extremely important and something we haven’t seen enough of.

Hopefully McDaniel and our OL coaches have a similar mind-set regarding these 3 issues.

Phins Up!
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These are all the things that we haven't done in the past. Seems about right because this oline has been atrocious for years. With a bad oline its hard to judge any other position. Hopeful we finally got it right this time
 
If we keep nine OL, I wonder who makes it

Terron Armstead
Connor Williams
Michael Dieter
Robert Hunt
Austin Jackson
Liam Eichenberg
Robert Jones
Kellen Dietsch
Blaise Andries

If we sign a veteran center, maybe Dietsch or Andries goes to PS. I suspect Dietsch in particular may pop in camp in this system.
 
Austin Tatious said:
If we keep nine OL, I wonder who makes it

Terron Armstead
Connor Williams
Michael Dieter
Robert Hunt
Austin Jackson
Liam Eichenberg
Robert Jones
Kellen Dietsch
Blaise Andries

If we sign a veteran center, maybe Dietsch or Andries goes to PS. I suspect Dietsch in particular may pop in camp in this system.
Click to expand...
Those FA signings are gong to be huge for this unit.
 
Austin Tatious said:
If we keep nine OL, I wonder who makes it

Terron Armstead
Connor Williams
Michael Dieter
Robert Hunt
Austin Jackson
Liam Eichenberg
Robert Jones
Kellen Dietsch
Blaise Andries

If we sign a veteran center, maybe Dietsch or Andries goes to PS. I suspect Dietsch in particular may pop in camp in this system.
Click to expand...
We also have Larnel Coleman from last years draft who had surgery before the season started. He should be good to go this year, good or bad.
 
Jamesw said:
As we all know, our OL has been a weakness for many seasons. I had an opportunity to ask a former NFL player ( played with the Raiders, until blowing out his knee), why we always seem to falter with our OL picks. He made 3 very good points:

1. We must stop expecting our OL rookies to come in, start and be great immediately. In his day (long ago) rookies were able to sit for 1-2 seasons and learn. They were given limited game experience during that time to understand/experience the pro game.

2. We must allow them to stay at the position they played in college or at the very least, play 1 position. This is particularly true in their rookie season.

3. Rookies need veterans to mentor them and ”take them under their wing”. This is extremely important and something we haven’t seen enough of.

Hopefully McDaniel and our OL coaches have a similar mind-set regarding these 3 issues.

Phins Up!
Click to expand...
It's why continuity is so important. You can't draft a guy, let him sit for two while you develop him and then change the system. We've been shuffling HCs and OL coaches seemingly every year for so long. That's part of what helped NE since BB took over. They had a ton of continuity. They could lose OL to injury or whatever and just let the next man up fill-in without much drop off. You can get away with drafting poorly if you have time to sift through linemen for a couple of seasons before you figure out who develops. If McDaniel ends up being all we hope he is, maybe we'll finally get a consistent system on the OL.
 
Danny68 said:
We also have Larnel Coleman from last years draft who had surgery before the season started. He should be good to go this year, good or bad.
Click to expand...
Good point. I don’t think there is a position I’m more intrigued to see what our new coaches think than OL. Frank Smith, Applebaum, and of course McDaniel. These guys have expertise and that’s refreshing after having a truly clueless situation last year. I think the situation is fluid and the coaches may have some “aha” moments in camp. With the new system relying on lateral athleticism, we all may be surprised how this plays out.
 
Ironically, there have been numerous posters on here pounding the table and saying the same thing. We have a bunch of young bucks with no vet leadership, they keep moving guys around constantly....I mean constantly, and they need more time to develop. It's reassuring hearing it from a pro too.

Kinda makes you wonder why our coaches didn't understand this over the past few years. I could say Flores simply just didn't understand offensive coaching, or he was trying to sabotage the OL so Tua would fail and/or get injured and he could prove to everyone that Tua was not the answer. I know the latter is a long-shot conspiracy theory, but I have a hard time understanding how our OL regressed so much last year. It just doesn't make sense to me.

Either way, I'm glad the new regime has made some veteran upgrades and are vocally supporting Tua at every opportunity.
 
srp1979 said:
Ironically, there have been numerous posters on here pounding the table and saying the same thing. We have a bunch of young bucks with no vet leadership, they keep moving guys around constantly....I mean constantly, and they need more time to develop. It's reassuring hearing it from a pro too.

Kinda makes you wonder why our coaches didn't understand this over the past few years. I could say Flores simply just didn't understand offensive coaching, or he was trying to sabotage the OL so Tua would fail and/or get injured and he could prove to everyone that Tua was not the answer. I know the latter is a long-shot conspiracy theory, but I have a hard time understanding how our OL regressed so much last year. It just doesn't make sense to me.

Either way, I'm glad the new regime has made some veteran upgrades and are vocally supporting Tua at every opportunity.
Click to expand...
I generally believe that you should have at least one vet in each unit.
 
I thought moving on from Karras and Flowers last year was a big mistake when it happened. Not because of their talent, because they provided stability and mentoring for the young ones.

Without mentoring, bad habits get formed.

When it comes to habits, I have found two things to be true. Good habits are hard to start and easy to quit. Bad habits are easy to start and hard to quit. Best to develop players implementing good habits from the start.
 
I agree with all of that, except with #2 there is a caveat.

Only the elite college Left Tackles are destined for Left Tackle in the NFL.

I'd venture to say that over 85% of them will be playing another position on the OLine if they make it to the NFL.
 
Jamesw said:
As we all know, our OL has been a weakness for many seasons. I had an opportunity to ask a former NFL player ( played with the Raiders, until blowing out his knee), why we always seem to falter with our OL picks. He made 3 very good points:

1. We must stop expecting our OL rookies to come in, start and be great immediately. In his day (long ago) rookies were able to sit for 1-2 seasons and learn. They were given limited game experience during that time to understand/experience the pro game.

2. We must allow them to stay at the position they played in college or at the very least, play 1 position. This is particularly true in their rookie season.

3. Rookies need veterans to mentor them and ”take them under their wing”. This is extremely important and something we haven’t seen enough of.

Hopefully McDaniel and our OL coaches have a similar mind-set regarding these 3 issues.

Phins Up!
Click to expand...
Well, there aren't any rookie OLs for them to coach this year. They do need to have a plan for Eich and Jackson, though.
 
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