jobberone;5041865 said:
TB at Dal
Both teams played poorly. Romo was sacked four times and coughed the ball up twice. He also threw an INT. We rushed for 38 yds on 23 carries. Again Romo saved the day and he wasn't sparkling. He had his normal share of plays generated via scrambling.
This game was no different for Free although I'm not sure about his effort. He did give up a pressure from an outside rush although he had good technique and blocked his man well. He just quit and the play got extended and his man was able to circle around and pressure Romo. He and Bernie did well with picking up the right man with overloads and stunts most of the time but there's enough confusion at times each game so far to call it a problem. That's creating occasional problems for Romo but so far I'd place the lion's share on Bernie and not Free. I didn't focus on Bernie but I saw him whiff a couple of times resulting in a sack or pressure. Free gave up a pressure eventually a sack (not his guy...but this was a breakout up the middle and his guy took away a potential escape route). He got his seals in the run game fairly well but looked anemic doing so. He's not much help with drive blocks but then no one else is either and they didn't do much of that in this game anyway. I haven't seen much of that in any game so far.
Didn't focus on anyone but Free but Murray generates a fair amount of yardage when there is little to none. He also finishes most of his runs. He appears to look outside including cutbacks a lot but some of this is by design and the rest because there's not much inside. This generates about the same amount of negative and positive plays with a couple of big yardage plays so for in the season. I see him picking up his blocks well although again I didn't watch him every play.
I'd give Free a C this game although some may grade slightly higher or lower. But I will go on record as he definitely was not terrible and hasn't been anywhere near that so far this season thru game three.
I appreciate what you are trying to accomplish; however, I just disagree with your assessments.
I've gone back through the All-22 for last season and reviewed each offensive snap at least 4 times (1 for each of LG, OC, RG and RT). My minimum was 4 times per snap; however, for some games/players I watched many more times than once per player/snap. I probably watched All of Parnell's snaps 10+ times and probably 5+ times for many of Bernadeau's snaps, especially the ones were he played Center.
I didn't write everything down at the time; however, I disagree with your assessment of Free in these games and in particular in this game.
It is unfortunate that people are getting the idea that Free was "not that bad".
It seems as if you're grading based on the result of the play. When grading OLinemen, I don't care or give them credit for Romo getting out of trouble. The grades have to be strictly what they should have done/accomplished vs what they actually accomplished or didn't accomplish.
If you were trying to determine why the overall offense failed in a particular game, then grading based on the actual results would be OK. If Free failed but it didn't affect the play, then you have to look at what did cause the play to fail; however, this is different than grading the individual player.
Again, I appreciate what you are attempting to accomplish; however, I disagree with your actual assessments.
