SmokinwithWilly

Sanders would have been signed to a 4 year, 20m per with 79.5 guaranteed. He loved paying RBs.

That's what really sucks about losing BC for the season. We could have switched them and let it see how it panned out. Bc wasn't amazing, but his name wasn't being called a lot the few games he did start at LT.

It actually helps. When you're well over 300 pounds, you lose your balance a lot easier than you would think. You learn to feel the balance shifts and compensate without thinking about it so much.

Yep. But that's a part of the switch from power run to WCO style. It's a lot easier to describe than actually do. Our line coach used to call it big boy ballet. Driving forward for run is easy. Being light on your feet is damn hard going backwards and sideways. He wanted us taking dance classes just to work on our footwork and balance. Add hand fighting and leverage into the mix and it's a lot to ask. Ickey was the best run blocking mauler in the draft. Cross was the most pass pro ready. Ickey was the pick for Rhule's run heavy scheme. That's why firing him 5 games into the season made no sense. It should have been done before the draft so a new coach could have a scheme ready drafting a key position like LT. I think it boils down to just an overall lack of any type of identity.

One was a broken foot, the other was a broken wrist. Broken bones happen in the feet. I've done it once myself just by stepping at an awkward angle, so that one is less concerning to me. The amount of injuries is definitely a concern, but with 2 of 3 being broken bones that concerns me less than all of them being soft tissue type injuries. I'm not saying we should ignore injury history by any means, just that a break is less likely to reoccur once healed where soft tissue injuries have a pretty significant risk of reoccurrence.

I get what you're saying. I think Icky has been relying more on his athleticism than other linemen. They could very easily just be overmatched athletically, skill, and scheme. I think it's likely a combo of trying to take power rushing and turn it into a WCO style offense like you said. Being quick laterally and being able to use a rushing defender's momentum against them to direct them out of position is pretty much how the position needs to be played in a WCO. To run what we're doing now, we should have moved BC back to LT and put Icky inside.

I'm sure there's issues, but Ickey looks like he is relying on his athleticism far more than others it appears. He has the vertical movement, but his lateral has been rough at best. Being able to keep your feet positioned is key to playing on the edge.

Probably for the best considering how bad that FO has been. Not that the Panthers have much room to say they're any better.

You can't just plug the most athletic person in at a position and expect them to succeed. Technique trumps athleticism 90% of the time at this level. The bigger question than draft picks is how has our amazing oline coach not addressed these things?

It's been 2 breaks and a soft tissue. The second break was a fluke thing. He's been unlucky for sure and unavailable a lot. If it was 3 soft tissue injuries I'd be much more concerned, but with all the hamstrings popping all over the NFL this year, it feels like he's just one of the many.

Hamstrings seem to be the NFL wide injury this year. It seems like every week half a dozen guys go down with hamstring injuries.

When it comes to Fitts moves this seems more appropriate.

Get the extension done Fitts. For once, listen to the Huddle hive mind.

That's it right there. 2 ends available for far less in picks and dollars than Burns. Smart teams weren't giving up what the Rams offered last year for a edge rusher with only 9 games remaining under contract. Was never going to happen.

I'm curious with the recent studies about turf and soft tissue injuries if that's going to start affecting FA choices. Available players have more earning potential and grass favors less injury risk.

Bingo. The Rams were trying to win another Super Bowl. They thought Burns was the piece to get them a significant advantage paired with Donald and were willing to pay a ridiculous price to do it because they understand that 2 Lombardis grant a lot of forgiveness. This team needed to begin a full rebuild this off-season but instead decided half ass it, try and make a run in a terrible division just so they could say they made the playoffs before getting blown out against better teams. This team's behavior is mirroring the owner. Impatient and rash. Now we have a new rookie QB, very little offensive talent, an offensive scheme that plays to our olines weakness, and a defense that's got more holes than a slice of Swiss cheese. Paying Burns on a 4 or 5 year big deal doesn't help the team because it's going to take at least half that trying to fill all the holes to at least be marginal. We traded away the assets needed to build around a rookie QB for reasonably quick success. I'd like Burns to stay on a deal that's similar to the level of production he's given. 7-10m per season is a lot extra when you factor in all the players we're going to need just to be competitive. This isn't on Burns. It's squarely on the FO fugging up this entire situation and this is what we're left with. Fitts needs to be shown the door once deadline has passed. He's done enough damage already. And for fugs sake, get a team president in here to get Tepper and his impulse control issues out of the front office.

If we could somehow swap him for TMJ I'd be happy.

He was considered a TE at ND.

Tremble wasn't terrible yesterday. I think a lot of people forget he was a blocking TE that caught a few passes here and there in college. The passing game was never his forte. It was always something he was going to need to work on and develop. Too bad work on and develop can be said of pretty much every pick under the Rhule era.

Some of my jersey's came from Marshall's. Got my Steven Davis, Mills and Smitty jerseys all for under 20 bucks each.

I think people are just tired of damn near everything Fitts does going wrong. No faith that this will go right either, no matter if it's a trade or a deal. We're going to get fugged either way.

That's why I said Fitts and Tepper are the issue. It's just what I would have done playing Monday morning GM. Either embrace the rebuild or don't, but we were never drop a QB in and playoff run ready. That's the frustrating part. This entire FO seems to be blind to basic things even guys on a message board are seeing.

Most of the guys like me who think we should have traded him last year realized then that we should have been going into full rebuild mode. I said it then, those 1sts could have been valuable in trying to trade for the 1st pick if we had chosen to do so. We wouldn't have needed to ship off DJ. We could have shipped off a Rams 2025 1st instead. Burns is gonna get paid. That's pretty much a done deal, or at least should be. Do I think he's worth 30m per season as an edge rusher that's a liability against the run? No. But what I think doesn't really matter. Personally, if I'm being honest, Luvu has been more of a defensive force than Burns going back to last year. Tepper and this FO have been shitting the bed for the past few seasons and we have very little to show for it. Picks, like players, are a commodity and they all have value. Do I think we could have done more with 2 1sts, a 2nd and 30m in cap space and a competent front office? Absolutely. Too bad we lack the latter.

If only anyone could have predicted the Rams would be in bad shape and those picks could be really good...

Still won the week.