| BakoSaint |
08-17-2023 09:08 PM |
Re: What Went Right & What Went Wrong
Quote:
Originally Posted by Boston Saint
(Post 977480)
That still doesn’t make sense. So, rather than draft say, Ram, you would have waited and drafted a different o lineman in the 4th round instead? Whether it be making moves like trading Graham for a pick and Unger or NOT signing Armstead to the big contract you hate to spending high draft capital on the position the team has regularly done what has needed to maintain a top 10 offensive line in the league. Even a guy like Peat. I like to hack on him as much or more than the next guy but he is by far not the worst first round draft pick we’ve made. He’s even been to a few pro bowls.
Last year was a massive injury fest on the line. That really hurt us. But as pointed out by others practically every team has line questions. Over the past 20 seasons, the Saints have handled it better than most in the league. Sorry, I just don’t buy into the premise that the key to getting a good line is drafting guys in round 3, 4, and five frequently rather than draft them in round 1 or 2. We lose out on guys like Kamara that way.
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I never said we should never draft oline in the 1st round. But since 2015 we have drafted 5 oline in the 1st round, zero in the 3rd, two in the 4th, and zero in the 5th. We are ok at drafting oline in the 1st but Ramczyk is our biggest hit. Meanwhile with midround picks on oline over the years we have hit on Armstead, Evans, Nicks, and Bushrod, like half our mid round picks on oline have been starters and like one third pro bowlers.
I feel like a very 1st round heavy and mid-round light drafting strategy for oline is bad for our team. The result is a line of players who were entitled to start from day 1 bc they are 1st round picks and then a group of backups who are mostly journeymen, udfa, or very late rounds and dont have the physical tools to push them. Guys like Peat and Ruiz can feel entitled coming out of the draft bc they dont really have to compete, and as they dont progress they can still start bc the guy pushing them is an udfa without the size or athletics to match them, so they still feel like heroes without having to work. If you get two mid-rounders and one first round pick, the mid rounders have to compete to start, the 1st rounder sees a healthy competition and feels maybe he needs to compete too. If you just take two 1st rounders they both get entitled and maybe one of them works hard anyway and the other doesnt, but it doesnt matter they both start. And then if one gets hurt the udfa backup comes in and doesnt have the tools usually so you lose and blame injury. But if you have a bunch of depth from the mid rounds, your backup will be better, and can even compete to keep his job when the starter comes back. So I just think the strategy of building an oline from 5 first rounders who are all slated to start from day 1 (even if there is sometimes a 1 year wait with some impending free agent we dont plan to resign) is a bad way to build a team. You need competition. UDFA and journeyman are often not enough to provide it. Add to that we are great at finding gems on oline in the mid rounds, half our picks there perform like 1st rounders. We just refuse to pick oline much there since after our success at it in 06-08. |
