Ben Grubbs vs. Carl Nicks
 

When Nicks left in free agency there were a lot of folks that were very upset with the front offices decision.
Enter Grubbs.......the next annointed savior on the O-line. After seeing the O-line perform in regular season how do ya'll feel about him now?:cool:

Re: Ben Grubbs vs. Carl Nicks
 

Re: Ben Grubbs vs. Carl Nicks
 

Grubbs did a lot better than our OT's.
Grubbs wasn't the problem.
He and Evans graded out the best of our O-line.

Re: Ben Grubbs vs. Carl Nicks
 

Whole O-line didn't seem like they had gelled. They had a game like this last year (think it was the Rams) and made all the right adjustments. Can't single out Grubbs yesterday.

Re: Ben Grubbs vs. Carl Nicks
 

Gotta remember one the past year we have totally revamped our line. Stinch gone, De la Puente, new, Nicks gone, who am I missing? A new offensive line takes time to gel.

Re: Ben Grubbs vs. Carl Nicks
 

Lets not blame Grubbs. He wasn't the problem....Bushrod and Strief were.

Re: Ben Grubbs vs. Carl Nicks
 

First pick in our next draft

Some monster offensive tackle because I'm sick of both of ours

When brees notices the blitz and has to do that WOAH CRAP!! kind of recognition, it always coming from their assigned players

Re: Ben Grubbs vs. Carl Nicks
 

De la Puente got trucked a few times as well. Which can't happen for Drew to be successful. He can step up or out if the tackles get beat. He can't succeed with pressure in his face. Graham is not a good blocker at all. It was collectively a bad effort overall.

Re: Ben Grubbs vs. Carl Nicks
 

The O-Line was man handled period, they know it, we know it, the entire country knows it . The Skins gave everyone a blue print on how to handle the Saints, Lord knows I miss Payton.

Re: Ben Grubbs vs. Carl Nicks
 

Bushrod has always been someone that needs to be helped either with a double team or a chip. Streif is solid but unspectacular on a great day and mediocre on most days. I agree, the guards are not the issue and Grubbs was not particularly bad. De La Puente was a practice roster player surrounded by two all-pro's to look decent. He is not a particularly strong part of the line. I'd love to see us go after a top LT next year in the draft.

Re: Ben Grubbs vs. Carl Nicks
 

We've always struggled with 3-4 defenses, and with zone blocking offenses.

We played both Sunday.

Re: Ben Grubbs vs. Carl Nicks
 

First off, I don't believe in "blueprints" to beat a team. If that were true, you could go all the way back to our first loss in 2006. Whoever it was gave the rest of the league the blueprint. And we just got better. If blueprints actually worked, we'd have been shut down every game thereafter. We just stunk it up.

Grubbs and Evans are fine. 80% of the people on this site are trying to pin blame. Its not having Payton, its the refs, its the WRs, its 12 men on the field, its Jenkins, its Grubbs.

Spoiler Alert: Its everybody on the team! Coaches & players.

They all know it. They will fix it.

Somebody send me an email when the sky has actually fallen.

Re: Ben Grubbs vs. Carl Nicks
 

Sheez. Give them a few weeks to get it together before we throw Grubbs under the bus.

What bugs me a little is that when we first got him, I kept hearing from Ravens fans that he was a really good RUN blocker, that opening holes for Ray Rice was the ticket on how the Ravens did so well, and got to the playoffs like old reliable all those years, with Joe Flacco not exactly being elite and all. (Aside from their defense, of course.) So I heard Ravens fans saying that, and I was like,"oh good, now we can get some holes and run the ball, this makes the Ingram pick make more sense now." But yesterday and all through preseason it was just pass, pass, pass so much on Sunday. I want to see him blow somebody up on a running play.

Re: Ben Grubbs vs. Carl Nicks
 

That's not really Grubs fault though really?

Re: Ben Grubbs vs. Carl Nicks
 

Hey don't blame the guards.

If you want to blame the O line then I'll admit the O TACKLES fell apart.

But Evans and grubbs are still the best guard duo in the league.

Re: Ben Grubbs vs. Carl Nicks
 

Oh no, I didn't mean it to sound like that. Not blaming him at all. I just want to see the Saints be balanced this year, and get into some boring "3 yards and a cloud of dust" ball control type stuff, to go along with the ridiculous dazzling passing attack.

Re: Ben Grubbs vs. Carl Nicks
 

Is the sky falling allready ?

Watch your game footage again from Sunday.

Watch the preseason game
Footage again. LT getting manhandled.

Look to see who batted the balls down Subday, the LT was no where near in his face.
All Bushrod.

Re: Ben Grubbs vs. Carl Nicks
 

Almost all of the QB pressure came from the edges and that is mainly on the tackles, both of whom were subpar. Interior of the line was much better, although DLP had some problems now and again.

I was when it happened, and I still am, completely OK with Nicks going to Tampoon Bay because they were able to bring in Grubbs - haven't yet seen anything to change my mind about that.

Oh, and Jimmy Graham had couple of nice pass protection blocks during the game, so he has been improving on that quite a lot from when he first came into the league, since he couldn't block for s#it back then.

Re: Ben Grubbs vs. Carl Nicks
 

I remember saying after the draft that I was upset that the Saints took Akiem Hicks instead of Bobbie Massie, whom I believe is absolutely first round talent, and had proved it in the SEC. I never found out exactly why he fell that far, but knowing he had that kind of potential I thought he would have been well worth any risk considering it was the 3rd round.

I got a loud response from the vast majority of that thread telling me in various words that I was crazy to think we needed an offensive tackle more than we needed help on defense. I tried like hell to make my point that our OT's were not good at all, and that we are either constantly having to chip with TE's or Drew is having to run for his life and make plays on his own.

That point was continuously met with this line: "We have the best offense in the league and Brees gets sacked about 20 times a year, but we can't stop anybody on defense... Yeah we really need an OT". I explained how we had already signed Hawthorne, Lofton and Bunkley to help the middle of our defense, and so I thought the weakest position left on the team was OT. I pointed out how even though we set all those records we always get man handled on the edges when we play against top 5 defenses.

Yesterday proved how easily a well oiled machine can look like a box of rusty nails when you don't give your quarterback time to see the field, much less make an accurate pass. Massie might never be any good. But the same can be said of Hicks. The draft is a game of chance, and you have to take chances on the positions you need help the most.

Re: Ben Grubbs vs. Carl Nicks
 

With all that said, I was equally disgusted with every position yesterday. I can't remember being more disappointed in a team. But those tackles were particularly bad, and with the offense struggling like that, I think it took the wind out of everyone's collective sail. There's no excuse for it, but let's hope they regroup and find a way to mask those problems once more.

Re: Ben Grubbs vs. Carl Nicks
 

It was their defensive ends that were pinning their ears back and meeting in the middle...

Seattle playoff game two seasons ago? Bushrod and Strief looked like turnstyles and those Seattle DEs should be sending Christmas Cards to our tackles thanking them for their big paydays...

49ers Aldon Smith was annointed the way he handled our OTs last year in the playoffs...

That's why I asked whose decision it was to say we were fine at OT...

It was a total team loss yesterday - but the OT problem has been a concern...

Re: Ben Grubbs vs. Carl Nicks
 

I brought up Bushrod getting man handled against the Patriots in preseason and was told it was preseason....didnt matter.

BS- Its now regular season. and it didn't go away. BOTH batted balls were Bushrods guy and Bushrod was 3 feet from him... I could have batted those balls with no one in my face.

The worry is that with Brees eating up so much cap room the money isn't there to get better players.Its always going to be either a young player just drafted or cast offs from elsewhere and trying to find a system to keep Brees safe.
I'm not dating we shouldn't have paid him but it will cost is elsewhere.

Re: Ben Grubbs vs. Carl Nicks
 

What's up with the guy from USC Charles Brown, can he play better than what we have now. I've always thought that Bushrod was not a left tackle and wouldn't want him protecting my 100 million dollar QB's blind side. Paid a kings ransom for Bree's the least you can do is protect him and let him earn that big money, on the other hand had to pay a lot to get him sacrifices will have to be made somewhere just not on the O Line.
As I was reminded by a friend it's just the first game, they have time to get it fixed no worries as of now but after week 3 or 4 I would start to get worried.

Looking back at that pitiful performance it was a team effort, penalties,dropped passes,fumbles,blown assignments on the defense all the way around so it's not just the offensive line although a good left tackle wouldn't be bad.

Re: Ben Grubbs vs. Carl Nicks
 

And they seem willing to allow for some edge pressure, as long as the interior of the line holds up and allows Brees to step up to make a pass.

Because of that it's very logical that they are paying their guard pair the big bucks because they are the ones keeping that interior from not collapsing on Brees.

Buhsrod will more than likely be gone after this season, he has a cap hit of $6.75M this year and if he is looking anywhere near that figure for his next contract... he might as well start looking around the league for someone foolish enough to pay him that, because I think someone might be willing to pay him that based on the fact that he has been a part of this offense and this O-line.

Strief is ok as a backup, but shouldn't really be starting. But like lee909 said, it's about balancing out who you would like to have on your team and who you can afford to have on your team.

I do hope that they'll use next year's 1st round pick to draft a stud of a LT, and if there's a certain player they like very much for that position - I wouldn't necessarily be against them trading up to get him or trading down if he can be had at a lower pick. I'd be willing to see them use couple of picks to get a stud of an LT if that is what it requires.

Re: Ben Grubbs vs. Carl Nicks
 

Charles brown was the reason brees got sacked 5 times vs rams last season, hard to believe but he's worse than bushrod

Re: Ben Grubbs vs. Carl Nicks
 

He has had all of those injuries, which have really hampered his development process, and because of that he probably will never be starter material in the league.

He is the backup for Bushrod in the depth chart, and he did play LT with the second string O-line during the preseason - with Marcel Jones as the RT - but I didn't personally see anything spectacular out of him in those games.

He was drafted mainly because he supposedly had great movement off the line with really quick and precise foot work and with good long hands, but it might be that all of those injuries have left their mark on his movement skills for good.

Re: Ben Grubbs vs. Carl Nicks
 

I always felt like what happened was, Jamaal Brown went down in '09, obviously unexpectedly, and Bushrod jumped in. I know I was panicking, back at that time. And the coaches were kinda like, winging it and flying by the seat of the pants. But it was sorta working. And then, it became a classic case of "hey, we won a Super Bowl with this thing" syndrome. So then it's like, OK, that's how we roll now -- Bushrod is now THE guy, never mind that it looks kinda sloppy and funky out there, never mind that teams with big guys like the Cowboys and Redskins can totally manhandle us on Bushrod's side, never mind that he's not a Pro Bowler or that Drew is looking jittery back there, when he used to look so smooth and fluid. Never mind all that, look away from it, look over here at the shiny object -- we just passed for eight zillion yards! Jimmy Graham! Sproles! Too many weapons! and all that jazz.

And then for a while, a lot of people (myself included) were like, "we have these TWO GREAT ALL PRO GUARDS, NICKS AND EVANS, we don't even need a left tackle out there" and then eventually, the fans and maybe even the coaches wind up in La-La Land, and reality starts to set in, about that left tackle slot. The temporary, stopgap, seat-of-the-pants, duct-tape and spit solution, Bushrod and Strief, has become the "new normal" out there.

I believe it's actually quite Payton-esque, in a way. To me, that's always kinda been sorta his temperament, or how he rolls. Like, short attention span man -- what's this, OK, stick a band aid on it, problem solved, everybody keep rolling -- he's on to the next thing. I'm thinking if we had been 8-8 or 9-7 in '09, no way Bushrod would still be here, probably Strief too.

Re: Ben Grubbs vs. Carl Nicks
 

So, you're saying our tackles aren't as good as we need them to be. The problem is if we draft a tackle then we don't have that draft pick to use on our pathetic defense. Spags definitely needs ALL the draft picks because the talent on D is subpar.
I'm a little concerned about de la Puenta. I'm wondering if Nicks helped him more than we realized?

Re: Ben Grubbs vs. Carl Nicks
 

Well. they need to get better tackles than Bushrod and Strief, and if they won't do it through draft, then they'll have to do it through free agency. Free agents can become very costly compared to draft picks, but, of course you know what the players can do instead of investing money on merely the potential of a player.

Some 2013 FA OTs who would be top 20 caliber:

Andre Smith, Bengals (UFA)
Branden Albert, Chiefs (UFA)
Jake Long, Dolphins (UFA)

Branden Albert would seem like a solid investment, 27 years old and a solid run blocker and pass protector - but his price tag will probably reflect that and I'm sure the Chiefs will try to re-sign him before he hits the FA market.

Remember.... Brees's contract MADE. Cap room.

As of 3 September we have 8.2 Million remaining in cap space.

2.5-3m is as close as they will go....

5 mil to play with.

1 million likes for referencing the "shiny thing".... You made my day.

I'm surrounded by 5 of them at work....

Re: Ben Grubbs vs. Carl Nicks
 

Brees took the money.

Now he gets to SCRAMBLE.

To get away from defenders who get through his budget line, and in search of budget receivers.

Alaska