Quote
Classicalwit
That's what happens when you miss top 10 draft picks and construct the unit primarily from cast offs, aging players, and journeymen.
I am not one to judge an OL prospect by his draft pedigree.
The GSOT OL did have Pace, and they did spend big $$$ in free agency on Timmerman (a 7th round pick btw).
But that line would not have been good if they didn't fill it out with Nutten, Gruttadauria, McCollum (who all fit your definition of castoffs) and also Miller (5th round pick).
The last time the Rams OL was in good shape---not too injured up (all OLs have injuries but if it's too many they lose effectiveness) and not too young (the 2015/2016 OLs were very inexperienced)---was in this window: the 2nd half of 2012, and most of 2013.
The first half of 2012 they were in typical Rams OL injury hades. But when the starters returned, they were fine, by any measure. Jacksons's YPC went up, sacks went down, they played teams like SF tough in their superbowl year, and so on. In 2013 fwiw PFF ranked them 13th in the league.
The 2012 and 2013 lines were not entirely the same but that doesn't matter. That line included a lot of cast offs (Williams, Smith, Barksdale, Richardson). It included veteran free agents, neither one of which could be considered "aging" (there are to this day starting LOTs in the league who were drafted in Long's year, 2008 and before. Actually Sullivan was drafted the same year as Long, and Whitworth was drafted 2 years previous.)
Guys like Richardson could be considered a journeyman but then he never played as well in his career as he did for Boudreau in 2012. That actually was very common. The Rams played a number of guys who had never done as well before and then never did as well again either after they left the Rams. (Turner, Williams, Smith, Richardson). There's also Barksdale but he did as well after the Rams so he did not fit the pattern.
Yes lines have been built that way in the league. In fact it's one of the common ways to build lines. Something about OL coaching allows you to take a young ronin who hasn't caught on yet, but he fits your system and develops and you get a unit with some guys like that woven into the starting 5. Happens all the time.
There's some complaints we could weave in there (Robinson) but it wasn;'t all bad by any means. And when Rams OLs WERE bad the absolute primary cause was injuries (and I mean extensive, unit threatening injuries) and also inexperience (2015/2016). Sometimes both (2015)...
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/14/2017 09:39AM by zn.
