Khyber53

Or hit you with a thrown AA battery.

True, but sometimes the absence of something makes for a big whistling void. Someone who makes the decisions has at least an idea of how they will perform. Look, I've loved watching our recent games and the wins have me feeling a lot more confident about the direction the franchise is headed, but one area that hasn't been showing us any progress is that offensive line. And that's been a problem for near on a decade now. We all know it was a systemic problem before Rhule. I'm just saying that I'm not sure there's a lot of new light being shed on the problem by Fitterer yet. Perhaps it wasn't his top priority. Maybe it was, there certainly was a lot of activity early on there. Most likely it's one of those phase three things. But as for our bench sitting rookie linemen, I'm going to have to see them out there before I can give them any sort of passing grade.

I'd love to see it! I remember when the first one rolled out and it was grand!

Here's the problem: This past draft, we took two offensive linemen. Christensen in the 3rd and Brown in the 6th, both being touted as good pick-ups and possibly steals in the draft (at least here on the Huddle). We also gave a big contract extension to Taylor Moton, our RT who had shown himself to be not just starting quality but one of the most reliable in the league. That's addressing three out of five of the positions on the line. We then went out and grabbed Cam Erving to be our LT (a first round draft pick in 2015 who has played for KC, Cleveland and Dallas -- grabbing an oft-injured tag along the way). We also grabbed Pat Elflein who had a few games as a starter for the Jets and had prior to that been a lineman for the Vikings at guard and center. John Miller, who had been on a one year contract was also re-upped to continue play here. Paradis was retained, apparently to join the roller-skating league team Tepper will be purchasing soon. So, they did address the o-line through the draft AND free agency to the best of their ability this season. And... that's what sucks about this. The two draftees were either unready or unable to compete at this level and they've pretty much just been playing grab-ass on the bench or just struggling to get (into) a jersey. Maybe there's hope but considering the beating our QB has taken and the limited openings in the run game, you'd have to think they'd have tried the guys out if they were third tier linemen players at all. Erving has been a turnstyle and seems to be tiptoeing around the medical trainer's office hoping to get a sick pass. Elflein pulled a hammy somehow and is on IR watching the games from his La-Z-Boy. Miller has been, well, the best of that bunch (barring Moton) even though there are stretches where he has literally disappeared. Paradis has greatly developed his abilities to rollerskate backwards while looking ahead which has allowed him to fall on a couple of fumbles, take that for the faint praise it is. And Moton, well, he's looking good but mainly in comparison to his line-mates. His quiet season so far would, on another mid-level to good team might possibly draw him some mehs or complaints. When it comes to helping the line out, remember that we had not just a re-alignment of the TE room (keeping only Ian Thomas from last year) but an expansion of that group like never seen before. And that, sadly, hasn't been much of a help. In the end, FItterer and Rhule both worked hard on this offensive line this past season, bringing in new personnel from the draft AND free agency. Right now, it looks like in all honestly that they may just not be very good at evaluating or training linemen. Like I said in another post, we have to be sure we don't confuse busy with good.

I'm gonna wait and see before deciding. It's early in the season and I want to see if Rhule can come back from the loss after a hot (but suspect) start. Also, with Fitterer, it's best not to confuse activity with success -- he's out there hustling but he may be throwing a lot of bucks at used cars that may or may not be good ones. Four weeks in, it has been a whirlwind. Let's just enjoy this crazy-ass ride and see where it goes.

Let's worry about that at the end of the season. All sorts of developments or lack of them could happen between now and then. Until then, DJax is a starter and with how he has played it's gonna be damned hard to drag him away from that job.

Let's let the man love his life and remain a legend in our hearts. Him coming back could devastate both of those things.

See, they're going to take all of these new DBs and put them into one big uniform and create some kind of Voltron LT. It's gonna be frikkin' awesome! (Except for the guy who gets stuck being the right foot. No one wants to be that guy.)

This may be an effort to get Robby open more often by severely depleting the number of DBs that are actually on the other 31 teams.

Technically, 11. We may well attempt to do that from the way it looks.

Take a couple of hours off and boom... there's another corner back. Sheeeeeit. Once we were a 4-3 defense. Now seems we're a 3-4, or more like a 5-2. We can, later on, field a 4-1-6??? This is crazy!

If it is going to be done, and I'm not certain it's for the best, you keep Moton at RT and try Christensen at LT. Otherwise you make be having two problems at once. It's easier to shield one problem at a time since you've only got 11 guys to work with.

And it was a happy buzz that still left you functional. Now, it's like being hit by a zoologist's tranq dart.

I don't disagree with you one bit on the problems Sam and DJ had resulting from our O-line being well overmatched. I was just giving the Devil his due in the Diggs efforts that night. We move on and Diggs is now someone else's headache until we see them in the playoffs.

True, but it is very hard to lose a lot of fat in that short period of time without also losing some muscle mass. Even with extremely monitored exercise programs, the weight loss from caloric restriction hits the muscles early and hard. It balances out in the end, hopefully, but there are a lot of issues there wherein the player could get leaner but weaker on a temporary (hopefully) basis.

It's not the sexy answer, but it is probably the right answer. If the potential was really there, they'd have tested it by now.

Personally, on the Deonte side, I think they've been working him to lose the weight (reportedly he's gone down from 364 at the pro day to 330-ish currently). It's hard to lose that much weight that fast without losing some muscle. There were conditioning issues back then obviously, but there may be different ones now caused by that change. Still, some reps on special teams as a blocker could help Deonte get into fighting shape.

I just can't say how I'd rejigger the line right now, simply because I don't know what the coaches know at the moment. I do know what I've seen and it definitely needs to get better. And the coaches have seen that, too. There's no way they've missed it. But they haven't sent Christensen or Brady out there, no matter how much handwringing the fanbase has gone through. There must be a reason. And that might be that they are honestly sending their best five potential blockers out there, sad as that might be.

How'd they leave?

I have yet to figure out why there's a draft or even two different brands anyway. They just wrestle the same pairings over and over again then drag them out again for the PPV which usually ends up being a snoozefest. And it's not just Goldberg, but also Edge, John Cena, Brock Lesnar, the Undertaker and a bunch of guys who'd moved on, but are being lured back for big checks just to put butts in seats. The only thing about these guys are that they offer is the chance to create a belt change without losing heat for one of the current belt holders. Also, it's lazy writing/booking on the part as a whole.

Perhaps the exterior OL also.

This whole team seems to have gotten major gains from the team weights program.

No, there's a difference in being trucked by Zeke and being completely incompetent and unmotivated on the field. Carter isn't Luke (Lord, who is though?) but he sure isn't Whitehead. Carter's out there earning a paycheck and has been decent in previous games. This time, the Dallas run game just had us. Their strength overmatched our quickness. Could Carter be better, though? Yeah, he could, but he has also been doing a lot to make this defense one of the best until we got steamrollered on Sunday. Let's see if he can even it out against the Eagles. And back on subject, sure hope Shaq can make it back quickly. He has been setting the tone out there.

Yeah, WWE is losing this iteration of the wrestling wars. After watching the draft last night, it makes me wonder if Kevin Owens must have re-signed with WWE rather than taking off for AEW as had been rumored when his contract expires in Dec.

I think that was Irving Fryar. The cocaine thing seemed to touch off the whole drug testing thing in the NFL becoming a serious deal. There were actually like 6 Patriots in that game that were implicated I believe.