Quote:
Originally Posted by Danno
(Post 992519)
The 1st half of the season our O-line was a sieve. Carr was forced to either throw too early, resulting in "hospital" balls or he had to take a sack.
I feel if we fix our O-line then Carr can be that QB that could lead us deep into the playoffs.
But as long as we have a terrible O-line, Carr, as well as any other QB, will fail.
Mission 1 this offseason is O-line.
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I agree that our biggest problem on the field is offensive line. The problem is that even if we fixed that problem alone I don't think we contend with the top teams, and we are unlikely to fix that problem.
With a good offensive line Carr, is a B-level quarterback but still not a Mahomes type. To win with a B level QB we need a lights out defense.
But our offensive line is likely to be hard to fix. Ramczyk was our best or 2nd best oline last year and has a degenerative knee condition. Peat plays the most important position on our oline at Left Tackle and held up surprisingly well last year but is aging and injury prone overall, although he is our best option there unless we draft Left Tackle in the 1st round. We have limited draft picks and the least salary cap space of any team in the NFL, plus oline is very hard to address in free agency as teams typically only let go players who are aging and injury prone.
Erik McCoy is a solid Center, but its hard to build the entire oline around a center. Plus McCoy played 17 games last year but only managed 12-13 the previous two years, so there is a risk that he reverts to the mean. Cesar Ruiz was sub-mediocre for a couple years, his contract was running out and he tried harder and was a little above average, we got excited and paid him, and he returned to mediocrity once the check cleared. He is not a terrible liability but he is punching a clock out there. And at LG we have nothing, Hurst is a mediocre journeyman, if we get a new LT and move Peat back to LG then Peat is a mediocre injury prone journeyman there. And the worst answer to any of this is Penning, who will be kept in case a spark lights up, but 90% he is worse than anyone on our practice squad at any position.
So even if we go oline in the 1st round or sign a big oline in free agency, we are not one player away from a solid oline, we need to go all in to fix the oline.
But if we go all in to fix the oline and succeed, what do we have? We still have a B-level QB and that means we need a top defense to win. But then Jordan, Davis, and Lattimore are all a year older, and likely our defense regresses. Dennis Allen has put together some very defenses but still could not win it all with Brees and Payton running the offense. So to win it all with Carr, DA would need to put together his best defense ever, a Ray Lewis or Warren Sapp or Von Miller type defense. If he was ever going to do that, I see no way its now with our aging core, broken cap, and all the draft picks and free agency money going to oline. We are just too many players away to fix this without a full rebuild, even if oline is where that rebuild should start.
