Aros":zo0gd70u said:
Fuzzman55":zo0gd70u said:
...McQuistan is an average player and Sweezy hasn't taken the step forward this year that I had hoped. He's still the high upside yet terribly inconsistent lineman...
First off, nice post. I highlighted a portion of your post that seems to be this paradigm we've all bought into without really having any reason to that I can see at least. Not you specifically of course, just this predisposition that we all seem to have as fans and media that Sweezy has this "high upside". Who says that? Pete? Cable? Even still, why do we think that's true? Have any of us truly seen this "high upside" or ceiling that even I have mentioned in the past?
I don't think that he's incapable of this high ceiling, but I sure would like to see film of it in action.
I'm still charting the game, but one thing that really surprised me so far is that our best O-lineman in this game so far is actually Sweezy. Sure, he had a Giacomini-load of penalties and that's not something you want to see every week, but his pass pro has looked just fine and his run blocking in this game was epicly good. He is dominanting my OL notes so far with his outstanding run blocks.
Funny enough, maybe his best play is the one where he gets the late hit. He opens up a big hole that Lynch runs through for a big gain with a great block, then turns around and smacks another guy. Then, he goes for the 3rd guy to smack around and that's where he gets the late hit penalty.
On nearly every big run in the 1st half, it's Sweezy who is making dominant blocks to enable the play.
As far as upside, the upside argument was about his current performance, his rate of improvement, his measurables (long arms, fantastic forty time, terrific in agility tests). Sweezy has better tools than Matt Kalil. Consider the fact that he was a guy who had never played OL before- a month later he is starting in the NFL at G. For a good team. That really tells you all you need to know about his physical talent. Because he didn't earn that job so quickly because of his experience or polish. He earned it because if you have a ton of athleticism you can get away with some things a lesser athlete can't. Obviously, he also had a ton of room for improvement and as he learned his craft, he'd climb the ladder to potential elite status.
Unger took 2.5 seasons to get as good as Sweezy is right now, and Unger had a ton of college experience and is an above average athlete. Unger is one of the elite interior lineman in the game. People should be excited about Sweezy, not jumping all over him for every little mistake during his growing years.
So far, OL has looked really good last two games, though penalties have definitely boned us, and a big part of that is on the OL. Penalty-wise, this OL needs a lot of work still. I wonder if that might just be a trademark of Tom Cable though, seemed like his line in Oakland was penalty prone as well.