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SeattleRam
two or maybe three years ago, between the 4 teams starting O-lines there were SEVEN undrafted players.
Patriots have one of the best lines in football the last two years and they only have one o-linemen on the roster that was drafted before the 4th round.
I'd love to know the number of undrafted starters there are compared to 1st round picks across the league on O-lines.
Yeah that's the thing--OL is developmental. So you don't necessarily know what you have at first--you can find good starters in a collection of presumed no-names. Some are more advanced coming out of college, but you can catch up. That's not only why you can use lower draft picks and UDFAs to build a line, but cuts and young cast-offs too.
In 99, Vermeil actually jettisoned 2 high picks--Gandy (a 1st rounder) and Wiegert (a 2nd rounder)--to build a BETTER OL. It's true that one addition was an expensive FA (Timmerman obviously) but AT was originally a 7th round pick and played DL in college. The other additions were McCollum (originally a UDFA New Orleans let walk) and Nutten (a 7th rounder cut by Buffalo who played in the CFL and NFL Europe). There was Pace of course but the 5th guy was Miller (5th rounder). McCollum didn't start in 99 (Gruttadauria, a UDFA cut by Dallas, did). But in essence a superbowl OL was built AFTER letting both a 1st and 2nd rounder walk and replacing them with low picks, cast-offs, and UDFAs.
Wiegert went on btw to play pretty well for the Jagz, and Gandy played really well for the Steelers. But Vermeil chose to replace them with no-names, low picks, and "ronin."
And if you look at how they were orginally acquired when they first came into the league, the 99 OL started a 1st round pick, a 5th round pick (Miller), 2 7th round picks (AT & Nutten), and a UDFA (Grutt).
That worked out okay.
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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/15/2019 09:14AM by zn.
