(02-20-2022, 11:36 AM)Upper Wrote: My biggest contention with the post is that we simply don't need "a tremendous upgrade on the OL." We have points of evidence for this. First, the growing thought that elite OL are not nearly as impactful as before. No one lines up Jason Taylor or Bruce Smith vs Boselli and lets them go 1v1 for 4 quarters anymore. If you have a HOF caliber OL teams are simply going to put their star pass rusher somewhere else. Remember Daniel Jeremiah's tomato can tweet. But people like PFF have been saying that for half a decade now. Just don't have any glaring weaknesses and that's way more important than having a superstar.
Second, Trevor Lawrence has already proven that he can make a bad oline look average. He will make an average oline look good. And he did that as a rookie, he'll make them look even better by comparison as he gets more and more NFL experience.
Third, we have in house options to make our tackles perfectly fine for 2022. All we have to do is spend a small amount of our enormous amount of salary space on tagging Cam again.
Draft EDGE at 1 then a developemental OT at 65 or 70 and prosper.
There are some issues with this analysis.
First off, teams have been moving around their best pass rushers for decades now. Lawrence Taylor, Howie Long, Charles Haley and sometimes even Bruce Smith were moved around the front. It's hardly a recent development.
Secondly, your post presupposes the addition of Neal would mean only one tremendous upgrade on the OL. I submit to you that Evan Neal and Walker Little, no matter which side you put either, would represent the potential to be tremendous upgrades (note the plural) along the OL. Ability wise, not only would such a duo not present any glaring weaknesses, both would potentially represent positions of relative strength. It wouldn't matter to which side the pass rusher was moved. The player was capable of winning that matchup and shutting him down. The defense could not dictate the formation, protection, and route combination based on merely switching a DE's side.
Furthermore, I agree with you that TLs pocket awareness and athletic ability are a tremendous help to the offensive line and makes them look better than they really are. That was painfully evident the first half of last year. however, just because TL is capable of making the OL look better doesn't mean the same bad OL is making his job any easier. In fact it's making his job more difficult. Each time he has to scramble like mad to avoid the rush, he gets out of rhythm. If he has to pull the ball down just as a receiver is breaking open, he can't make he completion. Pressure impacts the accuracy of the throws. Worse, when you have guys like Jawaan Taylor repeatedly being beaten for sacks and repeatedly getting penalty after penalty, it puts TL and the team in very difficult down and distance situations. Sometimes what should be a relatively easy 3rd and 2-3 becomes a far more difficult 3rd and 7-8 or worse, 3rd and 12-13 if a holding penalty. The last two super Bowls also illustrated the perils of poor offensive line play on QBs. Two years ago, Patrick Mahomes suffered a horrible Super Bowl loss because his two starting OLs were missing due to injury, and the guys they had to replace the starters were unable to block the Bucs edge rushers. This year the Bengals lost the Super Bowl in large part because their OL was incapable of blocking the rams' defensive front. They suffered 7 sacks in the second half of the game, and pressure was a huge factor on the game clinching play-a play that saw Jamar Chase wide open for what might have been the winning TD if Burrow had time to go through his progressions and get him the ball. Worst of all, bad OL play-even if inflated by a QB like TL with exceptional pocket presence and athletic ability-can cause wear and tear on a QBs body, Colts' QB Andrew Luck-to whom TL drew plenty pf pre draft comparisons-wound up retiring much earlier than anyone ever anticipated because the Colts didn't protect him adequately. One of the worst things that could happen to the Jaguars is that a similar fate befall Trevor Lawrence because we didn't give him adequate protection.
Worst to 1st. Curse Reversed!
