Satele was and is a good C. He played hurt and his play suffered. He lost his starting RG--a rookie--in game 1 and endured a revolving door of mediocre teammates. It's no real surprise that they didn't dominate up the middle. The LG was a very good young veteran known for pulling, not smashmouth straight-ahead drive blocking. He played very well, then went down injured as well. Satele was injured too--torn labrum which is pretty nasty for a lineman--but he played through it and we've crucified him for not dominating top NT's with only 1 arm and no G's of much ability to help him.
Don't be swayed by the negativity on this board. Satele was and is a good C, and I suspect he will do well in Oakland ... he just didn't fit out system quite as well as Grove does. That said, we now have all 3 starting interior linemen (Smiley, Grove and Thomas) that have a bit of an injury history. Thomas missed the entire season and is hurt again ... and I just hope he doesn't become this regime's Joe Toledo--a kid with lots of talent but couldn't stay healthy to develop it. Smiley has been an excellent player and leader and I'm glad to have him, but he definitely has injury problems. Grove may have received a bit of a bad rap, so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt injry-wise. But, with all 3 interior starters having injury histories, that tells me 2 things:
1) We damn sure need at least one starting-caliber bench lineman and some positional flexibility. (Berger?)
2) Developing chemistry with this group is going to be difficult, which doesn't bode well for the longterm potential of this line.
I'd say that while we are set at both T's, our interior OL is still very much a position looking for upgrades.
