hawkfan68":1co47zer said:
Carp is a 1st round pick. Currently he isn't living up to that label. So drafting a lineman in the 1st or 2nd pick may not be best player available. They've done better when they have drafted the BPA rather than drafting for need. Bobby Wagner, Richard Sherman, etc. I'd rather see them go that route and get value vs. someone drafted high that is oft injured or is a project type. The last thing this team needs is another high pick that doesn't cut it's mustard. Seahawks have had bad luck with 1st round OL unless they are picking in the top 20. Spencer and Carp were both low 1st round picks and neither played to their draft pick status (still time for Carp but not looking good).
We could wring our hands and worry about that for sure.
I'd submit a pretty parallel example. In 2011, we picked Carpenter while the Chicago Bears picked Gabe Carimi.
Carimi was a guy a lot of fans kind of hoped we'd pick. As it turned out, both have underwhelmed significantly. Where the Bears struggled somewhat with other picks, we hit on quite a few. But both teams were similarly successful, and both teams had at the time need for OL help.
The Bears were in a more dire, but similar position to us after the 2011 draft. Namely, they shared the suffering of an O line that was not good at pass protection, but had a successful running attack. Unlike us, Cutler is a guy who can't make up for the ills of his protection problems. And Chicago suffered to a greater degree than we have.
Chicago didn't just throw up their hands and cry for years about how they wasted their first round pick. Instead, they went back to the draft and did exactly what you said. They added help in the first round and did so again later in the draft.
This year, Cutler looks like a franchise QB again. Their protection problems having been greatly reduced. And it's due to the fact that they didn't just quit on fixing their problems because they failed late in 2011.
Seattle's pass protection can be improved. I don't think anyone that argues we shouldn't take an O lineman early would really argue that point. Just as anyone that thinks we should invest in the O line with top shelf talent wouldn't easily concede that Wilson's ability to elude rushers makes up for poor protection in much the same way as a Peyton Manning's ability to get rid of the ball does.
But we see what Wilson can do in the pocket when he has time and I think we'd all agree that we'd like to see as much of that as possible. He is outstanding at scanning the field and rescanning and extending plays. Better pass pro would benefit this team. And as elusive as he is, we all have to concede that the manner in which Wilson makes up for bad pass pro puts him at increased risk -- certainly more than other pocket passers who get rid of the ball early. Wilson is a player that must not get hurt. We simply cannot have the jailbreak pressure in his face with this kind of regularity. The odds of one of these resulting in a significant injury is not high, but the regularity of it is simply playing with fire.
In truth, Wilson's method for beating bad pass protection isn't that far removed from Ben Rothlisberger. Ben is a bigger QB and takes more punishment but the end result is, he extends plays and even on passes he completes, he takes contact. Wilson is doing the same thing even though he doesn't get hit as squarely or hard as Ben. But he's absorbing hits because like Ben, he needs to extend plays while under pressure instead of speeding up plays and not get hit at all.
Honestly, I think Seattle is on board with that organizationally speaking. Obviously they targetted O linemen early but didn't pull the trigger because they guys they wanted were gone. I concur with Kip that we were likely looking at Kyle Long, who incidentally has been one of the best players in last years draft at any position. The quality of this year's O line crop should be similarly good and deep. And we have a first round pick available to us.
I think the evidence we've seen suggests that Seattle does want to upgrade the line and like last year, are willing to use their first available selection to do it. When a team gets a franchise QB, you have to take measures to ensure he's here long term. With every hit and God forbid any significant injury incurred, he's going to lose some of that elusiveness over time. Just as Rothlisberger has become less and less of the ironman he was when he entered the league through repeated contact. The clock has already started on getting the best protection possible to keep Wilson as good as he currently is.
