seahawkfreak":34muy96t said:
"What I tell people all the time it's an area of concentration for everybody around the National Football League," Schneider said. "It's extremely hard right now to find offensive linemen. It's just a position over the last several years that has not been especially strong in the draft. You can see it when I talk to college coaches." ............This has been talked about many times here.
We talk about this all the time but I think people keep forgetting that there is a real issue with OL talent eval for our team. No team has invested more draft capital on Offensive Linemen than we have. It is *not* that we have neglected the OL in our plans. The problem has been that our choices have not really panned out.
Look at Ifedi last year. We invested a first round pick in him and he was terrible. I'm not giving up on him, he can get better, and hopefully he will, but he was not good. The Patriots picked Joe Thuney in the 3rd round and he started all year for the Super Bowl champs and made the Pro Football Writers All Rookie team.
Britt has finally worked out at C but he was not good at G and T, and he was taken in the 2nd round. We had Jahri Evans in camp and cut him. He went on to return to the Saints and started every game for them, receiving decent scores from PFF for his efforts. Why did we let him go?
This is going to be a critical year for the OL. There are so many guys competing for spots now, I think it is reasonable to be hopeful that a decent number from that group are going to step up.
But when I see us pass on Jahri Evans last year then sign Luke Joeckel with $7 mil of guaranteed money this year, I have to scratch my head and wonder why. I keep thinking of Evans playing at G for us last year, allowing Ifedi to stay at RT where he played in College and I think things might have worked out much better for us.
If we can protect Russ, we will have success.