Could the Right RG Fix Doug Free?

[Shinywalrus]

I'm a Cooper fan, and would love to hear his name called at 18. I also agree with those who would argue that Cooper is probably a better fit for our system.

But I like Cooper most at LG or C, where I want his athleticism alongside Tyron. Sure, we can slip Livings to the right side (probably more his natural side in any case), but part of me wonders whether the good Doug Free - the one who had a terrific season at RT followed by an above average one at LT - would come back to us with the right guy lined up next to him on the right side.

So, Cooper and Warmack fans - if you haven't completely written off 68 and you're willing to remember the good old days of him running 60 yards down the field to throw a block, who better serves this specific goal? Who makes Free better, Warmack or Cooper?

 

[BrAinPaiNt]

A good RG on one side and a good blocking TE on the other?

Seems like he did ok when he had help on one side or both.

After that it fell apart for whatever reason.

Either way I think even the cowboys know that he is not the answer at RT, whether they do enough to change that is another story.

 

[Shinywalrus]

Either way I think even the cowboys know that he is not the answer at RT, whether they do enough to change that is another story.

I'm going to go into street cred debt, but I'm not ready to give up on Doug yet. I think he can put it back together.

 

[Sifillest]

I'm going to assume that because Doug's biggest weakness is his sudden lack of strength and ability to anchor at the point of attack....moving him to guard would be pretty disastrous. IMO.

 

[BrAinPaiNt]

I'm going to assume that because Doug's biggest weakness is his sudden lack of strength and ability to anchor at the point of attack....moving him to guard would be pretty disastrous. IMO.

I don't get that move either (if the rumors are true about moving him to inside).

 

[xwalker]

I'm a Cooper fan, and would love to hear his name called at 18. I also agree with those who would argue that Cooper is probably a better fit for our system.

But I like Cooper most at LG or C, where I want his athleticism alongside Tyron. Sure, we can slip Livings to the right side (probably more his natural side in any case), but part of me wonders whether the good Doug Free - the one who had a terrific season at RT followed by an above average one at LT - would come back to us with the right guy lined up next to him on the right side.

So, Cooper and Warmack fans - if you haven't completely written off 68 and you're willing to remember the good old days of him running 60 yards down the field to throw a block, who better serves this specific goal? Who makes Free better, Warmack or Cooper?

There is a very easy fix for Doug Free. Cut him and put Jermey Parnell at RT.

I've spent a lot of time analyzing Parnell since the Cowboys acquired him 2 years ago. This includes watching every snap that he has taken in both preseason and during the 2012 regular season. This year it also included the 2 extra views from the All-22. I also focused on him when I went to training camp.

Parnell is better than Free now. If he had 1/2 the experience of Free, it wouldn't even be a question. Parnell is big, tall, very quick with long arms, big hands and better upper body strength than Free. He just needs more experience. When he did have problems, they were mental. Things like not knowing exactly how to pass off defenders to/from the RG or TE.

Free's issues where physical. He has more experience than Parnell in passing off defenders between the RG or TE, but he often gets beat both by speed and power. He has significant problems with lack of upper body strength. It appears that he has weak shoulders. If a defender gets his hands/arms under his and just thrusts upwards, Free has almost no ability to resist this move.

Free's upper body weakness was 1st exposed in the 49ers game early in the 2011 season by Justin Smith. Defenders have been exploiting this weakness ever since. Free has tried changing his technique. He has tried keeping his hands low, but this creates other problems. Without proper arm/hand usage, he must get his body into perfect position in order to make a good block.

Back to Parnell, a quality veteran RG is a must in order to have Parnell be most effective. If they draft a Guard, he will need to be on the left with Livings moving to RG unless they find better option. Brandon Moore (Jets) is a veteran RG that played for Callahan for 4 years. He would be a perfect fit and shouldn't be too expensive due to being 32. I would prefer to see Bernadeau move to Center.

 

[Sifillest]

Parnell wasn't exactly outplaying doug when they were splitting time during the second half of the season, though. So I would be a bit wary. We don't want a rehash of what happened when we cut all our old hogs in favor of costa, nagy, and arkin....*shudders*

 

[xwalker]

Parnell wasn't exactly outplaying doug when they were splitting time during the second half of the season, though. So I would be a bit wary. We don't want a rehash of what happened when we cut all our old hogs in favor of costa, nagy, and arkin....*shudders*

There is a very large pool of OTs that are currently Free Agents. It should be easy to find a good mid-level guy to compete with Parnell for much less than the 7M it will cost to keep Free.

2012 Starters:
Ryan Clady DEN
Branden Albert KC
Jake Long MIA
Phil Loadholt MIN
Sam Baker ATL
Jermon Bushrod NO
Will Beatty NYG
Andre Smith CIN
Sebastian Vollmer NE
Bryant McKinnie BAL
Gosder Cherilus DET
Max Starks PIT
Barry Richardson STL
Tyler Polumbus WAS
Winston Justice IND
King Dunlap PHI
D’Anthony Batiste ARI
Sean Locklear NYG
Khalif Barnes OAK

Top backups in 2012:
Will Svitek ATL 10 starts in 2011 (previous contract 1.5M per year)
Ryan Harris HOU 36 / 62 (previous contract 700K)

Others (Starts/Games-Played):
Jeremy Trueblood TB 84 / 101
Jeremy Bridges CAR 55 / 112
Jordan Black WAS 40 / 94
Jonathan Scott CHI 35 / 70
Frank Omiyale SEA 33 / 75
Dennis Roland CIN 30 / 66
Eben Britton JAC 30 / 37
Jason Smith NYJ 26 / 45
Geoff Schwartz MIN 19 / 45
Pat McQuistan ARI 11 / 72
Corey Hilliard DET 5 / 37
Rashad Butler HOU 4 / 42

 

[speedkilz88]

I don't get that move either (if the rumors are true about moving him to inside).

Well, Jerry said they discussed it; doesn't mean they thought it was a good idea.

 

[Shinywalrus]

I'm going to assume that because Doug's biggest weakness is his sudden lack of strength and ability to anchor at the point of attack....moving him to guard would be pretty disastrous. IMO.

Who is talking about moving him to guard in this thread?

 

[Shinywalrus]

There is a very easy fix for Doug Free. Cut him and put Jermey Parnell at RT.

I've spent a lot of time analyzing Parnell since the Cowboys acquired him 2 years ago. This includes watching every snap that he has taken in both preseason and during the 2012 regular season. This year it also included the 2 extra views from the All-22. I also focused on him when I went to training camp.

Parnell is better than Free now. If he had 1/2 the experience of Free, it wouldn't even be a question. Parnell is big, tall, very quick with long arms, big hands and better upper body strength than Free. He just needs more experience. When he did have problems, they were mental. Things like not knowing exactly how to pass off defenders to/from the RG or TE.

Free's issues where physical. He has more experience than Parnell in passing off defenders between the RG or TE, but he often gets beat both by speed and power. He has significant problems with lack of upper body strength. It appears that he has weak shoulders. If a defender gets his hands/arms under his and just thrusts upwards, Free has almost no ability to resist this move.

Free's upper body weakness was 1st exposed in the 49ers game early in the 2011 season by Justin Smith. Defenders have been exploiting this weakness ever since. Free has tried changing his technique. He has tried keeping his hands low, but this creates other problems. Without proper arm/hand usage, he must get his body into perfect position in order to make a good block.

Back to Parnell, a quality veteran RG is a must in order to have Parnell be most effective. If they draft a Guard, he will need to be on the left with Livings moving to RG unless they find better option. Brandon Moore (Jets) is a veteran RG that played for Callahan for 4 years. He would be a perfect fit and shouldn't be too expensive due to being 32. I would prefer to see Bernadeau move to Center.

I think your analysis of Free is wrong, not in particulars but in the conclusion. I think you've correctly identified Free's Achilles heel, although I don't think it's just a question of a single type of bull rush. I've seen him fall victim to hard shoulder punches as well. The problem, I think, with your argument is that the fairly singular thing that other players learned to exploit was exactly that: a fairly singular thing.

I think your analysis of Parnell is wrong in both particulars and conclusion. Parnell has worse footwork than any offensive tackle I have seen come through these doors, and it was still bad by his last snap of the season. When they were sharing time, I don't think there's any question that Free consistently outperformed him. Now, I think you can make an upside or cost argument and be completely justified. But when they were sharing snaps, Doug Free outplayed Jermey Parnell in every facet of the game, in my opinion.

But to the original point, why in the world would you not give the staff and Free an offseason to address this very particular issue when his level of production was very high before? It's not a cap question, because if he fixed the vulnerability you would feel comfortable restructuring in a way that reduced the cap by $3-4 million, likely notably better than what we would have to spend to get even a passable tackle.

When a player has a potentially addressable deficiency that was exploited for a single season but otherwise has a compelling body of work, that leads me to a "don't jump the gun" conclusion, not a "put a bullet in his head" conclusion.

 

[Dalmations202]

IMO, Free's biggest issue seemed to be his strength.

What caused the weakness? injury? lack of lifting? previous use of roids issues?

I am just curious why he seemed fine for a few, but then seemed so weak. Is it something Wiocek (sp?) can fix?

 

[xwalker]

I think your analysis of Free is wrong, not in particulars but in the conclusion. I think you've correctly identified Free's Achilles heel, although I don't think it's just a question of a single type of bull rush. I've seen him fall victim to hard shoulder punches as well. The problem, I think, with your argument is that the fairly singular thing that other players learned to exploit was exactly that: a fairly singular thing.

I think your analysis of Parnell is wrong in both particulars and conclusion. Parnell has worse footwork than any offensive tackle I have seen come through these doors, and it was still bad by his last snap of the season. When they were sharing time, I don't think there's any question that Free consistently outperformed him. Now, I think you can make an upside or cost argument and be completely justified. But when they were sharing snaps, Doug Free outplayed Jermey Parnell in every facet of the game, in my opinion.

But to the original point, why in the world would you not give the staff and Free an offseason to address this very particular issue when his level of production was very high before? It's not a cap question, because if he fixed the vulnerability you would feel comfortable restructuring in a way that reduced the cap by $3-4 million, likely notably better than what we would have to spend to get even a passable tackle.

When a player has a potentially addressable deficiency that was exploited for a single season but otherwise has a compelling body of work, that leads me to a "don't jump the gun" conclusion, not a "put a bullet in his head" conclusion.

Free's problem was exposed in 2011. He had a full off-season to work on it.

Did you review Free and Parnell on the game film or just TV footage?

 

[xwalker]

Here is an excellent description of Free's problems.

Tape...every player in the league has to overcome their own tape. Free hasn't.

It all started last season against the 9ers, Justin Smith, the ultimate technician, took Free to school all day. He repeatedly beat him with his hands, Free just couldn't keep up with the handplay. Soon after every player he matched up against were using less speed or power rushes, and more hand fighting. They would literally run to him, let him put his hand on them, then chop them away and go pressure Romo. His hand speed, and hand strength are not good enough. So the tape on Free became "beat him with your hands, you don't even have to try to fool him or set him up, he can't keep a grip on anyone".

Of course Free and the coaching staff went on a journey to improve Doug's hand speed, strength and placement. They've tried a variety of techniques, it's obvious from watching tape that they've had him trying many different things over the past 2 seasons. The problem now is, he's too messed up in the head. He's so worried about all the little details of what technique he's supposed to be using this week, he's reacting instead of dictating.

 

[KDM256]

I believe so since Free would be closer to the center position and could possibly cut down on the false starts

 

[burmafrd]

Here is an excellent description of Free's problems.

and if he had not been able to get stronger in the upper body by now then he never will

 

[Sifillest]

Who is talking about moving him to guard in this thread?

Totally misread that title...into basically what I wanted it to be about lol. I know it has been recently discussed (re:free to guard) as a possibility. But I do believe a great guard next to him won't really save him unless the defense is rushing 3 or something like that. Otherwise, the guard will still have to worry about his own assignment, and free can/will still be punished.

So, nah. I think Free, barring some kind miraculous strength gain in the offseason, or learning an entire new array of moves to befuddle defenders, will be done as starter for us.

 

[Shinywalrus]

Free's problem was exposed in 2011. He had a full off-season to work on it.

Did you review Free and Parnell on the game film or just TV footage?

I have and have watched the NFL's crappy low-res All-22 product if that's what you mean. I stand by the belief that Parnell is currently a step down from even the terrible version of Doug. I'm willing to have a cost vs. production discussion but Parnell's footwork and hand use are just atrocious.

 

[Future]

The only thing that can help free is his walking papers and a contract in the CFL

 

[DFWJC]

I'm going to assume that because Doug's biggest weakness is his sudden lack of strength and ability to anchor at the point of attack....moving him to guard would be pretty disastrous. IMO.

This is not an accusation but it has crossed my mind that Free would not be the first person to do, uh, extra things to get his strength up, earn a new contract, and then get back to "normal" again.
Sorry, but this has crossed my mind more than once.