Kind of telling when they mostly played Asim Richards at Left Guard during training camp and preseason. Bryan Broaddus mentioned back during preseason that he questioned the same thing about why Asim Richards was not being played at Left Tackle? He said someone from the higher ups told him they saw Richards strictly as a Left Guard... but refused to explain why.
Yeah the thought he was a guard now….
IMO, he really looked solid at left guard in the preseason. I thought when they moved him to left tackle, he also still looked pretty good although he did have some struggles against the Rams in the joint practices (as did Guyton).
He definitely seems to be first man up. Maybe even more surprising was that when Martin went down they brought in Hoffman ahead of Richards. Richards has played exclusively on the left side, though, and maybe they didn't want to make a double-switch again by moving Bass to right guard.
That's fair. Bass also has had more regular-season playing time at guard than Richards has had at tackle and the team even talked in the preseason about giving him some practice at center while trying to find him a starting role. (Of course, that never really materialized.) Richards definitely is not proven as an LT in the regular season, so I could see that argument being the reason.
Check out the Bass block on the winning td.
It irked me that we decided to give precious snaps to Edoga at LT instead of giving them to Richards. I thought Edoga should have been practicing at RT and G because he'd already proven he's not a starting-caliber LT. If Richards failed, then we could have activated the Edoga plan.
I liked Tyler Smith as the backup left tackle. Bass and Hoffman are good interior backups.
I don't have a problem with Bass. I just figured with the backups that if Tyler or Martin missed time, Bass would step in and if Guyton missed time, Richards would. Teams don't generally like to make double moves. I think it's like quickcc said, they trusted Tyler at LT because they've seen him do it in the regular season and they don't have enough evidence to trust Richards more. Guard is the easier position, so they put in the backup at the easier position, which is Bass.
Their moves worked beautifully. Classic game winning drive.
I'd have to see more of Hoffman. He hasn't had that many regular-season snaps at guard. He did start at center last year against Washington and looked pretty good, but the Commanders weren't playing either of their top DL (one was hurt and the other was held out because the game was meaningless for them).
I kind of hope we use the combination again against Detroit. Guyton has a lot of growing pains to go through. But if they deem him ready to go, at least he'll be facing Josh Pascal unless they switch Hutchinson to the right side to test the rookie.
We sure cashed in on those undrafted free agents. Wheat, Bass, Aubrey, Luepke, Turpin, and the tight end from Minnesota, and John Stephens on the horizon.
or Smith at LT, Bass at LG and Guyton at RT?maybe?
