I've been a Joekel apologist for a few months now, and I gotta say, I'm happy with his progress.

 

One play I want to bring up that maybe you guys saw yesterday:

 

They were showing a replay of a BB5 pass.  Right in front of him was Joekel getting pancaked.  But what was interesting is that as LJ was getting knocked on his butt, LJ made sure that the pass rusher fell right on top of him.  He was basically using a ju jitzu (sp) move to bring the guy down and neutralize him from the play as he was falling backwards.  He was using the players momentum to bring him down right on top of himself.  Yes, he got beat and knocked on his butt, but the pass rusher was neutralized.

 

To me, it was a smart play of Lukes part, and Blake got the pass off for a completion.

 

This to me in indicative of what you want to see from your LT.  Do whatever you can to protect your QB.  As long as he continues to get better over this year, I think we are in good shape with keep LJ long term.  There are bigger issues on the line.

 

LJ is not the liability that we all feared he would be during pre-season.  This is good news.

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