I think we did pick Carey intending him to be a tackle, but don't fool yourself into thinking he won't play guard if that is what is good for the team this year.
I agree with this statement...I think it is possible it just depends on how the other guys perform in their competition for the RG spot. I wouldn't be surprised to see Tony Pape and Rex Hadnot get into the action at the RG competition. If they all look terrible, and Carey looks like he's not good enough YET to play tackle, then you could see Carey play RG until he gets into NFL shape enough to play RT hopefully in 2005. However you would like to get him the opportunity to practice at tackle and get good at playing tackle, because thats where you hope the guy can play.
Its kinda like what Dave said with the safety/cb situation. You can always move a guy from CB to safety if he can't cut it at CB. Its hard to go the other way around though. If a guy can actually play CB you want him practicing and learning CB, you dont want him playing safety getting use to that then moving to CB. In general free safeties are guys that couldn't cut it at CB but can hit. Same with OL, in general guards are guys that aren't good enough to play tackle but are beefy and hopefully not too tall. If a guy's really athletic and talented chances are he's gonna be playing tackle. Thats what we hope Carey is. I think the OL has a little more versatility to it than CB/Safety however same basic rules I apply I think.
If Carey gets moved to guard it will be a desperation move that shouts to us oh god all of the guys we keep trying here just suck soooo bad we have to use Carey here just because we can't afford to have him sitting on the bench. Its the top 5 guys starting mentality.
But if Carey isn't ready to start in 2004, and I say its about a 50/50 chance he won't be, then I would think the coaches would want to give guys like Whitley, Jerman, Yates, Pape, and Hadnot a real shot at the job before just giving it to the guy we know can play there his rookie year...Carey. What I'm saying is Carey by rights was a good enough guard in college that he could walk into camp penciled in already as the starter, with the job his to lose but it being very unlikely he lose the job. However, we have bigger things in mind for him...playing tackle is twice as much responsibility as playing guard. So, we're going to try and see if some of the scrubs we have are good enough at RG so that we can keep Carey practicing to play RT for the future for us.
This RG "dilemma" of ours should not be seen as such. We have a number of young hungry guys, 5 of them actually, most of them worthy of an NFL roster spot. We're just hoping one of them steps it up a notch and becomes worthy of the starting position. But since guards tend to be "made" pretty easily, thats not a very far stretch at all.
And heck. Worst comes to worst we can just sign back Todd Perry who is still available. I was thinking Carey should play RG his first year but I think the more he works out in practice as an OT, even just as the backup, the quicker he'll be ready to assume the starting job...just don't assume its his already. We got LUCKY with Todd Wade.
