Just don't get it???

[scottsp]

It's a fair concern to have. The Dallas offensive line, as we know it, is not good. Our best offensive lineman is coming off a major knee injury. Now, Flo could very well be good to go, but there are question marks up and down the line.

Honestly, I don't know how Kosier fits in. I don't know how this unit will function. It's possible they could improve together, stay healthy, and do relatively well.

Or not.

Unless the offensive front can block effectively, it won't matter what skill people we have on the field. And quite frankly, I feel there is much reason to be concerned with this. Until we see an improved unit up front, it's only natural to worry about it. It was terrible.

 

[burmafrd]

The word on the Hotel is that he is ahead of schedule and doing very well.
Kosier is quicker then Allen while nowhere near as strong. But he will be able to hit players LA could not even get near. Johnson has decided to bulk up and trade some of his quickness for strength- and as long as he does not overdue it that could be the turning point for him. Rivera is healed and ready to go- hopefully for the whole season. Fabini is a decided improvement over a rookie Pettiti- and with an offseason to get stronger and time to study his weaknesses he should be much better. Columbo - we shall see. Peterman: the rub on him is that he has problems with pass blocking- so do not expect to see much of him untill BP thinks he can pass block. So we will probably get a guard in the draft. If Johnson really has gotten stronger then Gurode is a backup center and no more.

 

[ndanger]

great - we're not done. when we get more help i'll re-eval. till then we have a old back problem player another year older, hope kozier can play better than allen at 70%, and we've still got gurode and johnson as our instant-excuses to suck.

how many players on our line now would have started for the cowboys in 92-93?

That's kind of lame because you could say the same thing about the majority of nfl teams.Not many teams have linemen who could start on that line.

 

[btcutter]

People need to take off their Cowboy Fan glasses and judge our OL for what it is......below average and at best average (that's a big IF).
How many quality NFL starters are in this line???? ONE....Flo and he's coming off knee injury and inconsistent before that. So we got 4 below average to average players on OL....that can't be reasuring to anyone!

Someone say you just don't draft a bunch of guys and plug them in.
Well, if you don't try to pick a few good players...what is the plan? FAs like Tucker???

Oh...someone was kind enough to post list of OL players who is playing well/not well in the NFL....well.....perhap one should think about the LONG LIST of busts on the DL....Ekuban, Carver, Kennedy...on and on..the bust list is much longer.

Let's not even get into the fact that we could have/should have won more if we had a kicker.....well, if we had a OL, we wouldn't be in those situations in the first place. You think BP really like games decided by 1pt? hell, every coach would love to blow opponent out of the water and coast home. We simply don't have the O firepower and that starts at the OL.

I am not asking for greatest show on turf or the O of the 90's. I just want an OL that can dictate the game like the Steelers. That's the fastest route to the SB.

 

[hmcorp]

OUr time of possession is outstanding. Many times in games last year we dominated the time of possession. ridiculously.

thats one standard for domination.

 

[SilverStarCowboy]

OKay lets see, we got Flo back, released a one demensional LG in Larry Allen and gained a versatile LG in Kyle Kosier, have a healthy Rivera and signed Jason Fabinni a solid OT add the bigger Al Johnson and the Parcels courted Andre Gurode shoot throw in Collumbo he aparantly looks better than Tucker.....obviously the oline will be further adressed in the draft but there has been alot of effort and attention aplied to the bleeding area this Offseason already, to suggest otherwise is simply not accurate.

 

[btcutter]

OUr time of possession is outstanding. Many times in games last year we dominated the time of possession. ridiculously.

thats one standard for domination.

Don't kid yourself. We needed to win the TOP because our offense is below average. If we did dominate, we would win a lot more games and it wouldn't be close. If we were behind, we were toast most of the games (Everyone knows that). That's not a sign of a good team or good offense. You can have TOP; I'll take WINS.

2005 2006
Flo before injury > Flo with injury
Allen < Kosier (I am not convinced but I'll give you that one)
Al/Gurode = Al/Gurode until proven otherwise
Rivera= Rivera until proven otherwise
Pettiti< Anyone including Pettiti with one yr


You can see it's a wash. Don't give me the another yr will make Al/Gurode better.......you can't bank on that at all.
We were bad last yr and if you go in with similar line you'll get similar results. BTW, we got quite a few 30 somethings here as well. They are on the downside of their career and more prone to injuries. We better plan for some quality players to take over SOON.

 

[hmcorp]

Ummmmm...the super bowl champions of the past oh i dont know 30 years have all dominated TOP. teams that didnt (a good example is the 2002 st louis rams) sure there offense WAS EVEN MORE explosive than the previous super bowl run against the titans but...they did not dominate TOP...they lose.

temas that dominate TOP do not have crappy offenses by the way. and we did not have a crappy offense last year...certainly one of the better offenses we have fielded in 7 years. with Flozell we wereo n pace to throw for 4000 yards and have over 400 points.

Just like the seahawks.

It is a moot point because even WITHOUT him a field goal kicker would have given us anywhere from a 11-5 to 12-4 record. So the whining about the O line is a little old. They didnt play as bad as people said they did. They unfortunately had a rookie at one tackle and a substandard player on the other side. The rookie wasnt that bad for a rookie either. Neither is Al johnson.

The right side produced our largest runs and most touchdowns running the ball as well. mmm,,,the right side...the one without larry allen...i wonder why.

 

[peplaw06]

Don't kid yourself. We needed to win the TOP because our offense is below average. If we did dominate, we would win a lot more games and it wouldn't be close. If we were behind, we were toast most of the games (Everyone knows that). That's not a sign of a good team or good offense. You can have TOP; I'll take WINS.

2005 2006
Flo before injury > Flo with injury
Allen < Kosier (I am not convinced but I'll give you that one)
Al/Gurode = Al/Gurode until proven otherwise
Rivera= Rivera until proven otherwise
Pettiti< Anyone including Pettiti with one yr


You can see it's a wash. Don't give me the another yr will make Al/Gurode better.......you can't bank on that at all.
We were bad last yr and if you go in with similar line you'll get similar results. BTW, we got quite a few 30 somethings here as well. They are on the downside of their career and more prone to injuries. We better plan for some quality players to take over SOON.

A wash?? You have two positions where 2006 is better than 2005. As for the LT, you need to break it down like this.

2005 games 1-10 (7-3) games 11-16 (2-4) 2006
Flo pre injury > Torrin tucker < Flo after injury

We don't know if Flo will be back to his old form, no one does. but I haven't seen anything that says his rehab isn't going well. In fact, it's apparently ahead of schedule. Assuming Flo will be better than TT, then 3 positions better than the OL from the part of the season when the **** really hit the fan, with 2 the same grade. How is that a wash?

 

[Gibbs II]

Im sure helping the O-line will help you guys tremendously, but lets not forget the holes and problems on the entire football team.

Also, one part of your demise was the ability to come out flat periodically.

 

[SilverStarCowboy]

Im sure helping the O-line will help you guys tremendously, but lets not forget the holes and problems on the entire football team.

Also, one part of your demise was the ability to come out flat periodically.

Atleast when we beat the Skins, it's not our SuperBowl.


http://www.***BANNED-URL***/sharedcontent/dws/img/09-05/0920redskins1.jpg


:starspin

 

[TheEnigma]

The reason many speak of wanting to upgrade two positions on our D before any offensive positions is simple to explain. Many would contend that our Defense is better than our offense. However, the two weakest positions on our Team are OLB and FS. This is of course taking into account Fabini and a healthy Flo. By upgrading two positions on defense, our team would make gains that could only be met on offense by slightly upgrading 4 or 5 positions. It's much easier to hit on two positions in the draft than 4 or 5. Also, OLB is a playmaking position. The offensive line is less so, and if we can obtain a playmaking OLB, than once again the gains would outweigh the addition of an offensive player.

 

[peplaw06]

Im sure helping the O-line will help you guys tremendously, but lets not forget the holes and problems on the entire football team.

Also, one part of your demise was the ability to come out flat periodically.

YAWN... Again with the coming out flat?? I guess the RedStinks never came out flat huh? Forget the 36-0 romp in NY... forget the Cowboys game where you were down 13-0 (yes I know what happened, that's beside the point), forget the TB and Denver games where you were down 21-10.

EVERYONE comes out flat now and again. :bang2:

 

[jrumann59]

Out of all the guys we missed out on was Bentley we could of had him instead of Gurode right out of college.

 

[big dog cowboy]

It's is painfully obvious to me that our OL is the cause of our demise last year and will be again if we don't draft some good players here...

The O-line will be improved this year. Book it!

 

[Smith22]

BT,

I'm in the same boat as you in that I'm not sold on this OL. My problem is this, we have tried to fix this OL over the past 4-5 years in both the draft and FA and we failed miserably thus far.

Gurode was highly touted coming out of college and has been a bust.

Johnson was one of the top centers of his draft, he has been average at best thus far, plus his injury his rookie year set him back.

Rob P was OK given where he was drafted, and the guy can only get better IMO, how much better is the question.

Jacob Rogers, need I even go there????

Peterman has been disappointing thus far, showing very little.....

Rivera was signed and looked to be a good fix for at least 3-4 years. Throw in his back injury and bang, yet another question mark.

Bottom line, I have no faith at this point in our coaching staff/scouting department in bringing in the right guys.

Now all that being said, Adams coming back from his injury SHOULD be a big upgrade, even with his reputation of being inconsistent. Question is, does Rivera shake off the injury and show us why we brought him here to begin in? I wish I knew. As for our free agent signings this year, they are solid depth at worst, and Rob SHOULD show improvement in his 2nd year, plus he will be in a dog fight for the job with Fabini now here. Neither guy really gets my confidence going, but we do at least have a legit competition there now.

IMO, we are looking to add a guard during rounds 2 or 3, and we are looking for an OLB in the 1st round, but if a guy like Justice happens to fall to us, I think we jump at the opportunity and draft him, I just don't think he falls that far.

 

[btcutter]

Smith22

I would love nothing better than to be proven wrong by our current OL. However, it's hard watching the play of the OL when it's poor and arguably the weakest are on the team (got a new kicker).

Unfortunately, we did fail in previous OL picks but that doesn't mean we shouldn't keep trying as long as we don't reach for them. Remember we kept missing on DL and RB for yrs until our recent success. Draft is partly luck part law of average. We are due for some good OL picks (again do not reach).

 

[Smith22]

Unfortunately, we did fail in previous OL picks but that doesn't mean we shouldn't keep trying as long as we don't reach for them. Remember we kept missing on DL and RB for yrs until our recent success. Draft is partly luck part law of average. We are due for some good OL picks (again do not reach).

Agreed, like I said, I think we pick a guard Day 1, and if Justice happens to somehow fall to 18, I take him in a heartbeat.

 

[CrazyCowboy]

We will draft a lineman (offense) no latter then the 2nd pick

 

[Zippy Speedster]

I'm with you. Our Oline is a nightmare waiting to happen. Peronsally I'm really tired hearing, d-this, d-that, d-gotta-be-for-da-draft. Our d is fine and not only that has another year under it's young belt, we'll be fine there. For the people that say our run defense was weak last year, well that's a direct reaction from our offense stumbling short so many times last year- our defense got tired and opposing offenses got into a running groove, it happens when you can't control the ball. Often times the best defense is keeping the defense off the field as much as possible. With a make-shift Oline, that won't change. We could dedicate this entire draft, too, to defense, and more then likely the same outcome that happen last year would happen, our d would get tired from being out there so long each game and eventually come around the 3rd and 4th quarter of most games the offense will get in a groove and run right over us if we allow games to stay close.

It's quite simple actually, it's like walking up steps.. Alright, our right leg has went up a step (our defense), now it's only obvious that we need to pull our left leg (our offense) up a step or risk tripping right on our faces.

Basically on offense we went and upgraded the engine by getting TO. The problem is, forgot all about the tires. Hit that gas too hard around a corner and those old fat bald tires (the oline) will skid right out of control for us and we'll hit a wall.