(02-26-2024, 03:38 PM)cland Wrote:

(02-26-2024, 01:42 PM)Caldrac Wrote: Yeah. I cited my opinion on this decision in the college forum. I think JPJ has to test off the charts this Sunday. His RAS probably needs to grade out nothing short of an 8.3 or better. He looks good on film, now you're just kind of hoping the measurements, the strength, the footwork, etc. All of that matches up with the player we see on film.

The other thing they could do, is, maybe sign a veteran free agent at Center that's clearly better than Fortner as it stands today. Maybe on a 2, 3 year deal with some easy outs, and then you make the decision to draft JPJ with the intent of playing him at LG or RG as a rookie. This is nothing new for this staff and football team. 

They've been doing it for awhile now. Fortner was predominately a guard at Kentucky and a one year starter at Center. You look at how they've tried different things with Walker Little. So, again, you can always find a way to justify a player's selection by manipulating the position they'll play and by projecting their long term worth. 

We did the same thing with Brandon Linder over time when we took him out of Miami years ago. It worked out play wise. Unfortunately he could just never physically hold up with his durability.

As a Texans fan this rings my panic bell a little bit.  Several Texans GMs kept drafting OL guys that they planned on starting at positions they hadn't played in college, and on several occasions they just weren't as good at the new "projected" position.  It reminds me of the "we're going to start our best 5 lineman" approach, the problem is that your 3rd best OL player whose at tackle may not be your best guard.  The individual positions themselves require a unique skill set, some OL can be shifted and some just can't, assuming they can--without having seen it--just adds one more unknown to the draft lottery.

Agreed. It's a big risk. Sometimes it pans out. Sometimes it fails. I could see us having to do that in a few scenarios this off season. It just depends on what they're fixing to do here shortly in March. 

There's some people here locally that think they could opt to move on from Cam Robinson this off season, move Anton Harrison to LT and make Walker Little play RT. There's some people here that also think within that same scenario, that, Fortner is still the starting Center and they add a pair of new guards to support him instead.

A lot of ways to mix and match but it's just speculation in the off season. Again, free agency will provide a better picture of how they view things and what they want to do. I can tell you though, that, if they don't end up signing at least a starting caliber Center, a prominent Defensive Tackle and a Left or Right guard?

They're really playing with fire by trying to backfill all of that in the draft instead and leaving it up to a game of chance. Or, even worse, assuming that they already have their answers on the roster and thus double dipping on complacency once again for the second off season in a row.

Complacency kills.

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