(04-01-2021, 06:55 AM)The Real Marty Wrote:

(04-01-2021, 06:49 AM)Bullseye Wrote: This kinda raises a line of inquiry I've never really considered.

I'd say one of the few things this OL has going for it is continuity.  Now some may say that's pointless if the OL is bad.  But if the Ts somehow manages to raise their level of play, the OL could be a very good one.

That said, how soon would you be willing to cut the interior three?  If they represent the current strength of our OL, how long will you be willing to keep them?  Now the team asked Norwell to accept a pay cut, and his contract ends after this year.  I think had he not accepted the pay cut, he would have been cut or traded.

If we stocked up on OL this year (assume 4 for the sake or argument) and somehow hit on all the picks such that the team were confident they could be starters, when do you insert them into the lineup, thereby making the vets that currently comprise the strength of the OL expendable?

When is sacrificing experience for youth acceptable?

Would you do it piece meal-Norwell let go in 2022, Linder in 2023, Cann somewhere in between-or replace them all at once like ripping off a band aid?

Would you expect a drop off in the quality of play-even if briefly due to the lack of continuity together?

Great question, and it points out the difficulty of pulling off a rebuild of this nature.  Our offensive line is average at best, they are aging, and their contracts are about to expire.  If you plan to replace many of your offensive linemen over the next year or two, how much will that affect continuity, and how long will it be before we have a good offensive line consisting of players with contracts that are long enough that they can develop that continuity?  (I guess I just repeated what you just said.)

I think I would piece-meal it.  Try to re-sign as many as we can, while building a pipeline of guys who can beat them out. If we replace all of them at once, it will be chaos.  Inevitably some of them would not succeed, and that would be a disaster.  

I've never liked letting go of any starter before we have a better player.

I am inclined to agree with you.

While I would prefer talent over experience, that is not to say experience has no value at all.  My concern is that in our zeal to upgrade the talent on the OL to provide more protection for TL, we'd sacrifice experience to make that happen-possibly defeating the whole purpose of the moves and putting him at greater risk for abuse-at least for a few games, anyway.

I think at minimum, I keep Linder at C the longest.  We need Linder to be able to identify the fronts, the mike, potential blitzersand make the adjustments while the new guys (including TL) learn.  After After 6 years in the league, I don't think there's anything he hasn't seen.  Once the new guys have a season or two under their belts, completely move on then.  I would prefer to keep Norwell a little longer too, but that does not appear to be in the cards.

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