I'm not sure what you saw last year that makes you think you were right about Phil Costa. He was injured, but he played well when he was in the lineup. So, there's that argument.
What I said the entire time about both Livings and Bernardeau, and I was very, very clear about this was that it was absolutely ridiculous for people to fuss about those two picks as much as they did before any of the starters last season had played a single snap in a Dallas uniform. I happen to think that point remains entirely accurate. If I were one of the guys complaining that much about players I'd literally never seen play, I'd be embarrassed by having such a strong opinion based on absolutely nothing.
I also said all along that both players were stopgap, short term signings. That Mack, in particular, had upside since we hadn't seen him play with the benefit of starting reps. That it was silly to complain so much about Livings, who played for a playoff team in CIN before coming to Dallas. That OG play, overall, is not as important as OT play. That I was worried about OT depth. And that we were debilitated last season by injuries to both VFA OGs and to our top 3 C candidates. That the lack of any time together as a starting lineup in TC hurt us. And, again, when we got into trouble, it was because of problems at C and RT more than it was at OG. Despite that, EGG, we were a fairly effective offense last season. What we weren't, was a fairly effective passing defense. What we weren't was effective at taking care of the football and at taking it away when we needed to.
The fact that I defended our interior OL from baseless criticism does not mean that I was blind to how good those players will be. I feel like I'm a broken record, in fact, in that I say in just about every post that it's just not all that important to have premium players in those spots. These aren't revisions, and, if I'm praising any of these guys, it's faint praise. For the record, I don't consider saying 'they're not complete garbage' to have been praising them in any way.
If you really can't negotiate the nuance, and I use that term very lightly, between defending players from unfair and unsubstantiated attacks and 'praising' them for not be disastrous garbage, then, yeah, maybe you should accept this 'change of tune.' And by 'change of tune' here, I mean 'reiteration of the exact same tune I've been humming all along.' Because, if the points aren't registering after this much repetition, there's little chance of them getting heard, anyway.
