Thanks for the analysis. I haven't seen the game, but was specifically interested to hear how the offensive line played.I spent most of the morning finding all the replay tape I could find. I too was impressed with Kindley. He looks like he didn't get the memo on slimming down to play this system, but he has solid hand placement, a real nasty streak, and when he gets his hands on you, you're toast. If he ever took football serious enough to lose some weight he could still be salvageable, but that doesn't seem to be the case. It appears as it he swallowed a bus. Deiter played solid on the plays he was in but the worst player I saw over and over was Kion Smith #76. He was completely overmatched and had ZERO awareness on stunts and twist. He looks lost out there. Coleman didn't have a great outing either but he showed a lot of improvement over last year. He played at about the same level Jackson played OT last year before getting moved inside, which wasn't good. Coleman did have some very good reps though and he wasn't as bad as some have said IMO. Robert Jones also didn't have a great game. It was his missed block that caused the hit on Ahmed in the backfield. Robert also had trouble figuring out who to block at times and before he could figure it out both options were by him. I had high hopes for Robert but right now I would feel much better having to play out a game with Coleman being forced to play LT than Robert Jones playing OG.
Pankey has never been someone I have been high on but he may have found his best chance at center. He has very little mobility but is quite strong at the POT. He stands guys up and doesn't give much ground, solid anchor, vs big DTs. He isn't good or really a solid backup yet but I think center is his best chance to make it in this league. If he can understand the line calls he may end up being hard to cut. As it stands there is apparently a big issue with Deiter being unable to make line calls or he would be the starting center and the Conner Williams disastrous experiment would be over.
I think our best OL is Armstead, Williams, Deiter, Hunt, Jackson. I wish we would have gotten to see more of Kellen Diesh. Don't really see a lot of OL improvement over last year except for Coleman, and Jackson but we didn't have all our starters. Basically Skylar put up the numbers he put up behind roughly the same sort of dumpster fire Tua had last year. Speaks volumes about just how well Skylar played. I really loved Skylar's poise and leadership out there. He looked like he belongs in this league, with time and improvement he could maybe become a starter in this league. A lot of potential. Just imagine if he had Waddle and Cheetah and the starting OL out there.
I do think it's too early to give up on Williams at center.