We were good enough in the trenches last year to win the divisional, conference, and league games.
I don't think we need to go to the O line factory for a rebuild so much as we need to go to the hospital and get our guys out of it. We need to get a starting five healthy and let them practice and play themselves into some semblance of cohesion.
We've put in that time with our current batch of guys - our starting LT has been a part of the system for a while, evn though he stepped up from replacement to starter. My overall point here is that O line, as a unit, requires a sync between the players that develops over time. It takes about two or three years to get an offensive line. You can replave one, maybe two, players on a unit, but not 3/5ths or 4/5th of it.
Our mid-round players, with a couple of years of development, played quite well in the interior positions last year, and improved noticeably over the course of the season. They had some rough edges going in - and many fans on this board were worried that our coaches had blown it, that they'd never succeed.
We had an experienced vet RT who was originally hired as a road grader at RT but became a serviceable pass blocker, and a Hall of Famer, inspirational team leader, and de facto playing coach at LT with young players that our coaches developed in the interior.
The only personnel change on that line, going into thi season, was the retirement of Big Whit - and the magnitude of that change is difficult to overestimate. We thought Joe could step up, play good football and fill that position although I don't think anybody expected him to supplant all that Whit gave us.
I'm not sure, given the development of our current LT, that we're not better off lnow and ooking forward now than we were with Noteboom.
As-is, with total stranger replacements plugging the O line, the unit is a problem but easily fixed. Get people well. Beyond that, my choice would be for a big enough road grader guard to play beside Havenstein, one who can hold his own as a pass blocker. (We thought we had drafted that with Bruss. It remains to be seen whether he will meet expectations; I see him on a downward trajectory. Time will tell)
That, of course, would require a coaching philosophy that would stick to the run for an entire game, realizing that the run is easier for your O line to block, and more punishing on the defense. That punishment shows up later in the game, and requires more that a few first quarter plays to establish. Late in the game, third and goal from the three, it can pay game-winning dividends.
Viewed from my distant perch, the big problem with the Rams O today was the same that we've seen all season: Given the effects of our injury-decimated O line, the bigger difficulties lie with the McVay/Coen coalition's apparent unwillingness to scrap what has repeatedly been shown not to work and replace it with something that just might.
