SmashMouth

voodooido

So reality, what time are we looking at?

K Major

"Saints offensive line failed Derek Carr today, and we could all see it coming" - Nick Underhill.

That 2 min rant from Underhill is probably the realist I've heard from him in years.

voodooido

“He’s going to die”. That’s a pretty serious statement. On pace for being sacked 68 times. I see o line talent but not in the play. Maybe a change in coaching is due. A new o line coach couldn’t hurt

rezburna

Could be a week. Could be a little over a month. Depends on severity.

BakoSaint

I have seen past reports of quarterbacks coming back the next week from an AC Sprain. Some are their non-throwing shoulder but others are their throwing shoulder. Drew Lock missed 3 games in 2020. Kyler Murray had an AC sprain to his throwing shoulder but did not miss a game. Justin Fields had one to his non-throwing shoulder, came back the next week, then took 1 week off. Bryce Young had one at Bama and missed 1 game. If you search Tom Brady AC joint he had numerous injuries to both shoulders over the years, played through all of them as far as I can tell, but had some kind of surgery in the offseason in 2004 on his throwing shoulder due to clicking etc, and tried to twist to land on his non throwing shoulder after that.

It seems like many can play through this injury if they have a lower grade sprain but based on Carr's initial reaction and the grim initial outlook, it seems likely that he has a relatively more severe sprain more in line with Drew Lock and will miss a few weeks, or more if further tests like an MRI show more issues.

Rugby Saint II

Is it too late to bring in another lineman who can block and protect the QB? It's not like we didn't all see this one coming.

rezburna

Losing Trai Turner was big. I also don’t think Penning is a LT. He might be a better fit on the right side or at Guard.

BakoSaint

I think this injury and our issues with oline relate to salary cap management. Yes, we have lots of 1st and 2nd round picks on our oline, it appears to show we care about the position. But lots of other teams have spent those kind of picks on oline too if you count back to 2015, and some of them were great and are all pros now, while others washed out of the league and are no longer on their rosters. Sometimes they ended up with two players whose best position was the same, and they let go of one in free agency and picked up a replacement who was a natural at another position. Some of these former high picks of other teams who were busts, now journeymen, tried out for us in camp and we cut them. Many other teams might have an oline made up entirely of 1st and 2nd round picks if they almost never cut or benched or replaced their 1st or 2nd round picks when those picks didn't pan out, or if they almost never replaced those picks with free agents who played better or better fit their scheme, but other teams have a lot of accountability and after a few years they move on from the failures, even if they were high picks.

But with how leveraged our salary cap is, most of our high oline picks are approached with a philosophy of 'this has to work' because we don't have much money to replace them in free agency, and we need to restructure their contracts annually to help get under the cap each year, which creates a mountain of prorated debt that would be a big problem in our salary cap situation if they departed and it hit as dead money. So we end up throwing good money after bad, and instead of being able to trade, cut, or let walk the ones that don't work out, we shuffle their positions and restructure their contracts and they stay forever, unless they get so expensive that we get outbid like happened with Armstead.

So, I think the high picks on our line are deceiving. Andrus Peat was a high pick in 2015 but has mostly been a bust and on any other team he would be gone by now. Penning looked raw and was hurt his first year and other teams would not rely on him to start at left tackle without a good backup. Ruiz's struggles his first two years might have got him benched on other teams. Essentially we are managing our oline by making high picks then taking a 'ride or die' approach, and Carr almost got killed. It is what it is, but if we had a little more cap space long term, or didn't trade up so much in the draft and had more picks, or could afford the 1 year cap hit with a long term cap savings of moving on from a bad contract, we could replace the duds like Peat. Instead we just keep playing musical chairs giving our oline auditions are every position on the line before sending them to the bench, and then switching the positions they are more effective at because another oline can't play his position... Well, I just think its all connected. And I think continuing to extend Peat when he has been very ineffective just sends the wrong message to the rest. Peat basically has a union job. If Ruiz's 34 games of mediocrity turn out to be more representative than his 19 games of improvement, he has a union job too, because we will never be able to afford to move on. Ramczyk and McCoy have been great but at times there are signs the injuries may add up and take their toll, but at the same time we have been restructuring their contracts annually and making them impossible to exit down the road. They all have union jobs. They may have come to realize it, watching Peat.

Danno

He's week to week, and felt better today than yesterday.

I'm optimistic he'll miss one week, be back for the Pats.