James Hanna vs Gavin Escobar?

[Hoofbite]

Only on this board can a thread about TEs be turned into a thread about the OL (not aimed at you, speaking in general). Its kinda ridiculous really, but anyway, there are 22 players that take the field for a team on offense and defense. There are more positions than the OL, and some of you just don't want to recognize the holes elsewhere.

"Holes" is a pretty subjective term. I suppose for some it could mean that not every WR is pro bowl bound. In this board's case, it might be TEs though.

If you're trying to argue that the #2 TE position was as equally needed as the OL was you aren't going to get an argument from me on that. Not because I agree but more-so because I won't waste my time entertaining that idea.

There is alot of youth on that OL, sure some of you can discount it, but it is youth that is still developing. There are other position groups on this team without that luxury, not to mention the OL has gotten 2 first rounders in the last 3 years.

What position groups are devoid of youth? The only one I can really think of is DL and they didn't do a single thing to help that area out.

It's one thing to actually fill holes at the expense of other holes, it's another to add luxuries at the expense of filling any holes. S, DL, and OL were likely the Top 3 priorities on most people's minds entering the offseason. Perhaps #2 RB but RBs are a dime a dozen. From those 3 position groups the team has effectively added 1 player who's going to start this year.

Enough already, sidetracking threads to always talk about the OL makes this board unreadable.

So don't read the threads that talk about OL or skip the posts that do. Do you really read every single post in a thread? Use a little discretion and add a few years to your life.

FWIW, the OL came into the discussion (at least where I picked it up) in a post about how the TE pick was justified by the lack of OL picks in the 2nd round.

 

[CowboyMcCoy]

This is simply ridiculous. You know who scouts are? They are typically ex- players or ex-coaches that weren't good enough at either to make it. They are not special people with superior eyes for talent. To say NFL coaches cannot watch film and evaluate talent as well as or even better than scouts is ridiculous. It's the coaching staff that tells the scouts what traits they want in players a specific positions. The scouts then do the tedious work of traveling and watching film to weed out the guys that don't fit. Once they bring the list of names they think fit, the coaches study the film and scouting reports on those players and everybody gets together to create the draft board. The scouts are the last people qualified to run the war room. They don't have to coach the players or pay them. If well run war rooms are run by the opinion of scouts, they why even have the coaches or front office in there. Just let the scouts draw up a draft board and then you only need the head guy in the war room making the decision. No one works that way. If I'm in Jerry's shoes and it's time to make a selection and my coaches do not want a player, there is no way I take him. Now, they have to have a reasonable argument if it's a player the scouts really like but if my coaches are adament they don't want him, forget it.

This is true in general, but scouts come in many different forms. I grew up with baseball scouts and a few MLB players. Baseball is a lot different game and its players take longer to develop the nuances of the game, but their general job is the same--find talent that will produce in the future. In a lot of ways, we've done that. Our personnel is better than average. So I think our scouts are doing a pretty good job. The problem, in case you guys have yet to notice, is our coaches could better serve our team if they stepped away from coaching and went into scouting. I know for a fact Jason Garrett would make a better scout than he would a coach. But that aint sayin' much.

What we don't have, and what we need is a guy like Parcells, who can coach any position, scout any position and still coach like a champ. How many positions could Garrett coach? One. Anyway, this whole scout vs. coaching argument is stupid.

What's more valuable than a good scout? A coach who can get the most out of every player, thus the team. We don't have that. I wish we did.

 

[CowboyMcCoy]

Coaches don't matter in the scouting process/war room. Tell that to Bill Bellichick. He'd laugh in your face.

 

[Deep_Freeze]

"Holes" is a pretty subjective term. I suppose for some it could mean that not every WR is pro bowl bound. In this board's case, it might be TEs though.

If you're trying to argue that the #2 TE position was as equally needed as the OL was you aren't going to get an argument from me on that. Not because I agree but more-so because I won't waste my time entertaining that idea.

What position groups are devoid of youth? The only one I can really think of is DL and they didn't do a single thing to help that area out.

It's one thing to actually fill holes at the expense of other holes, it's another to add luxuries at the expense of filling any holes. S, DL, and OL were likely the Top 3 priorities on most people's minds entering the offseason. Perhaps #2 RB but RBs are a dime a dozen. From those 3 position groups the team has effectively added 1 player who's going to start this year.

So don't read the threads that talk about OL or skip the posts that do. Do you really read every single post in a thread? Use a little discretion and add a few years to your life.

FWIW, the OL came into the discussion (at least where I picked it up) in a post about how the TE pick was justified by the lack of OL picks in the 2nd round.

Well the problem is if we go to a need based draft like you seem to lay out, it will end in utter disaster like the drafts of 06-09. You can't go into a draft reaching for positions, only time need should creep into a draft is in the first round, after that it should be BPA to get the best football players on the field to build a football team around.

Sure it would be nice if those BPA matchup with needs, but that almost never happens. If you want to fill all those needs you list, you do it in free agency not the draft. The draft is for talent acquisition, not filling needs, so I really don't care if OL was 'needed' more than a TE, its the draft....its about talent, not need after the first round.

Drafting the best player at a position of need gets you the loads of ordinary players we ended up with from 06-09. I don't want to see us do that again. And yes I have read every post, unfortunately, and I guess it gets on my nerves when I read about the OL 24/7 when we don't even have a true starter at safety or SLB thats worth anything.

Of course that goes without mention here, lets talk about OL in every thread.

 

[CowboyMcCoy]

Well the problem is if we go to a need based draft like you seem to lay out, it will end in utter disaster like the drafts of 06-09. You can't go into a draft reaching for positions, only time need should creep into a draft is in the first round, after that it should be BPA to get the best football players on the field to build a football team around.

Sure it would be nice if those BPA matchup with needs, but that almost never happens. If you want to fill all those needs you list, you do it in free agency not the draft. The draft is for talent acquisition, not filling needs, so I really don't care if OL was 'needed' more than a TE, its the draft....its about talent, not need after the first round.

Drafting the best player at a position of need gets you the loads of ordinary players we ended up with from 06-09. I don't want to see us do that again. And yes I have read every post, unfortunately, and I guess it gets on my nerves when I read about the OL 24/7 when we don't even have a true starter at safety or SLB thats worth anything.

Of course that goes without mention here, lets talk about OL in every thread.

Well said.

 

[jobberone]

....snip....
Generally speaking, sure. But when you have a group of guys who are all nothing but projects, you'd be foolish to sit idly and see how things pan out.

It'd be one thing if Dallas was counting on young promising players to develop but that's not the case. They basically took the best they could find from the garage sale and hoped somebody would shake out.

You have 11 players on the field at one time, 5 of those guys are OL. I don't consider it inpatient to spend a little more of your resources on that area regardless of what is already in the cupboard.

The same health issues he currently has, correct?

Am I forgetting an unrelated injury he suffered last year that held him out for a significant amount of time?


I've not heard of any significant problems yet. He allegedly had osteochondritis dessicans which is likely due to trauma in his case. He's been cleared to play and has no symptoms so its unlikely to be a problem right now. Whether he has further problems is going to be an unknown.

That's fine but when you make the claim that a certain guy is one of the more ready to play guys in the bunch and he spends nearly the entire season on the practice squad, clearly you've misevaluated him. If he was the most ready he would have been on the active roster and probably would have taken some snaps in a couple of games.

Like Eskimo said, he wasn't ready to make the switch from T to G. You can forget Jerry's hype. He was paid like a fifth round pick. I'm not upset that an UDFA guaranteed $200k didn't play a lot last year.

There are plenty of current OL that need to prove one way or the other if they can play at this level or not. The OL is not nearly as bad as many here think and does not need to have many of the current players jettisoned and get more rookies in here to compete. And I didn't say it doesn't need to improve.