Pandion Haliaetus":iv0bjebk said:
1. The offense has been vanilla. Who knows what they really plan to do with Graham. His blocking is just something he needs to keep working on and get comfortable yet. 2 pre-season games in doesnt mean he'll be so inconsistent 8 games in.
2. Britt is fine at LG the position he played as a Freshman and was a LT as a senior. I dont think Sweezy will be good on the left. He still kind of raw which makes him inconsistent at times and now youre asking him to change up his footwork. Doesnt make sense. Britt makes sense.
This. Exactly.
There's so much knee jerk reaction. So, Graham isn't the blocker that Miller was, 2 games into the Pre Season ? <shows my shocked face> It's a work in progress. Also, we're not going to use him as a "blocking" TE, but covering a TE is so much more difficult when he blocks down, then goes out on a route. THe LBer makes a couple of read steps, and might even start filling the run, then Graham rears up and blows by him. Then you start to get indecision when Graham does block and the LB just takes his read steaps but fills late because he's not sure if Graham is going to release.
I played LBer, and the biggest TE I ever had to cover was 6'5". I'm (or was) 5'11" 1/2 so the only two options you have when a guy like that comes to your hook zone is blast him as hard as you can (doesn't always work that well when the guy is bigger and stronger than you), or keep him in front of you and when the ball is thrown, you come in as hard and fast as you can, jump as high as you can and hope like hell you can disrupt the pass and you have safety help behind you. Anything else is just surrending an easy catch in your hook zone. I can't imagine trying to cover a guy like Graham, especially if he was blocking down and I'm moving forward already. The worst thing that can happen to you is he gets behind you.
Those are precisely the reasons you want Graham blocking. Jimmy is such a special player that he's never really had to block.
Or, you can just put him out in space where everyone knows what will happen. All the time. Then again, that sounds like something Bevell would like.
Also, I hear a lot of talk on this site about Sweezy being an elite Guard. He's elite at a few things, like getting his man on the ground by chopping his legs, he does get good push in the run game, and he's one of the best at peeling off and getting his secondary targets in space. He's still a bad pass blocker, and he doesn't always pull well either. So, like PH said, if you switch him up, it takes away his good things and highlights more bad things.