We simply do not know. I think there is good reason to be hopeful. But there are also reasons to be seriously apprehensive.
I don’t think there’s anything any of us can say that would shine a new light for the rest of this board. I wanted, however, to try to find the balance from my point of view.
First, I am deeply confused by one aspect of McVay’s handling of the roster in the pre-season. I do not understand why our starting LG and C, both 2nd year guys with almost no experience, never played. The apparent principle was that starters didn’t play. But SJD and Gaines will probably together account for most downs at NT, and they played a lot. I’m glad they did and I thought they looked great.
Well, how about Noteboom and Allen? I actually have high hopes for these guys. I have not been able to SEE Allen play, but I love the whole idea of him, the sort of player he is, his intelligence, wrestler’s athleticism, and hard work. I think he’ll be very good. And NB is a pretty solid player. I wonder some about his power quotient at a position requiring power. But I think he’ll do well, if not very well.
But OL has a tough learning curve. You have to LEARN those positions. It just seems to me that NB and Allen needed the work. People talk about knocking off the rest to start the season. These guys don’t have rust. They’re green. They haven’t faced the LOS in combat. I see 2 issues. 1. We are simply left with questions about Allen and NB. 2. I think that their lack of PS game experience raises a further question as to whether they have been properly prepared without having gotten PS game experience. And we face some monster front 7s in the first few games!
Again, I THINK I like the 2 players, but we simply cannot know. And after all, LOG, C … it’s tough to think of an offense thriving with weakness there.
OK, the 2 2nd year guys are question marks. Whit is not … except that he is at the very edge of the age limit for the game. Can he hang on all year? Hav. is a solid player, but limited. And Blythe is functional but underpowered. Looking at the starters, I think we have serious OL question marks and they always jeopardize an offense. No matter how loaded with skill players, an offense cannot soar with weakness at OL.
And then there is the question of the backups. I don’t see how we can expect yet another season of sustained OL health. Our backups?
I watched them pretty closely in the PS games. I tried to keep in mind Kromer’s whole commitment to a developmental routine that keeps youngsters hopping from one position to another because the short-term pain leads to long-term gains. OK. And it is certainly the case that they grew in effectiveness from game to game.
A big part of that is the profound complexity of modern OL play. NFL OLs operate as complexly integrated units. They are effective when each player works together in mutually supportive ways. Especially in zone blocking schemes like ours, line play these days is less a matter of individual players physically blowing DL off the LOS than it used to be. They screen off lanes and seams, and their success is deeply interwoven with QB calls and reads, RB adjustments, and the like. It is far harder than most fans realize to assess an individual OL performance. In that sense, it makes perfect sense to expect the youngsters to steadily grow in the choreographed OL dance. And they did.
But what bothered me were the cases in which our OL backups were physically overpowered. Again, it’s hard to be sure, because a slight hesitation due to a half-second delay in processing the scenario can make a player seem to be hopeless. But still. I have nightmares of DEN #98 blowing past our OL again and again, lighting us up. I never saw anyone actually show a capacity for handling that guy.
Here’s the conclusion I drew. As the PS went along, we got better at the zone blocking scheme, establishing walls that establish seams. BUT … whenever a DL went hard upfield, our interior OL had terrible difficulty handling it. SOME of that has to be guys lacking the physical capacities to handle NFL DL.
Now, there are some positives. First, I think Edwards and Evans, especially Edwards, showed some class and grew a lot. Also, I think our backups pass blocked comparatively decently for the most part. Although, again, the still looked pretty shaky up the middle.
Still, I just do not feel good about the guys who played. I thought Neary looked poor. So did Demby. And those were the guys with at least some experience. I kept looking for someone to show up decently, but I can’t say anyone did.
And then we added … Coleman Shelton? Really? We couldn’t get some vet from somewhere?
And by the way, I am not persuaded by the “Trust Kromer, McVay, and Snead” gambit. Yes, they are more trustworthy than previous Ram FOs. But FOs, no matter how good they are, have blind spots and make mistakes. A really good position coach like Kromer can easily get lost in a theory and overestimate his ability to get class out of limited talent.
So, I dunno. I am not sanguine about this OL. There is reason to hope, especially if our starters remain healthy. But I dunno …
