The-Hogs.net - Washington Football Discussion, Redskins to Commanders Era

I wanted to continue this discussion from the "running down Talib" thread, which was locked:

HTTRRG3ALMO wrote:

Deadskins wrote:

HTTRRG3ALMO wrote: Every Redskin fan wasn't on this board a few months ago including myself. And yes, we were saying we needed a line. Why do you think everyone was worried about RG3's protection?

Get out more...

Dude, they worried about RGIII when he scrambled out past the line, not when staying in the pocket. You should stay in and watch the games more.

It was both. Its been said through news outlets and sports commentators that RG3 was the most pass pressured QB in the NFL.

Almost every time it was spoken in the context of the line needing to "block more" for RG3.

Of course you had people jumping on the bandwagon changing out song to "braves on a warpath, block for RG3."

No, it wasn't. In fact, you have it completely backwards. It was heavily reported that RGIII was the least blitzed QB in the league last season. The reason was twofold. The run option made it very dangerous to blitz him; he'd just pull it out and run right around the blitzing defender if he came inside, or complete the hand-off if the defender took the outside away. And his quick release and deadly accuracy made it a moot point anyway. And the song lyric was changed to "fight for RGIII" not "block for RGIII." We had a top five offensive attack, for the entire NFL, last season. You don't do that with a poor line. What games were you watching?

I missed this discussion originally. But yeah, the only people I heard bemoaning our line were those fans who tend toward "the sky is falling!!!" reactions.

The O-line was surprisingly good all year in pass pro/run blocking and blitz pick up. Again, you just don't have our offensive production without a strong oline, I don't care how much Griffin did help them. I'm not trying to quote stats, but I do recall our ability to neutralize a lot of blitzing teams and blitzes with our offensive sets and play action. If anything, I was shocked that Griffin didn't get hit and blitzed more until I started hearing commentators pointing out how good his completion percentage was against the blitz.

I don't think he was the most pressured QB. (I lied I did look up this stat). If he was the most pressured QB, then the line was amazing since they were #12 in sacks allowed. Now they were #22 in QB hits, but I'm positive that number takes into account when he was a runner, too, which isn't an OLine issue. The Oline was surprisingly good from game 1, primarily because most everyone thought they would be crappy and performed consistently. The only reason they might have SEEMED to improve week by week is that fans just didn't adjust to reality for a month and a half.

This is the primary reason I'm not as concerned about our needing to find the next Joe Jacoby or Jon Jansen and why I think we can afford to find out if Compton is legit or not.

RGIII getting knocked down in the pocket was just as much his fault as it was on the line. Our line is leaky, nobody is saying it's the best line in football. However, it is better than many people here give it credit for.

Let's not forget that Mike told RGIII to get his hands up quicker. Let's not speak as if RGIII is perfect. He has a propensity to wait a bit too long and not throw the ball away, or slide. One of the knocks on him is a lack of pocket presence... RGIII can do more to help his line and his line has room for improvement to keep him a bit more clean.

However, NONE of his injuries occured due to any fault by the linement... The line isn't the issue. It's RGIII's inability to effectively protect himself and his inability to know when to protect himself. If he hadn't blown his knee out, I would have sent him to the Nationals spring camp and made him run bases and slide at every one of them. Do it till you get it right.

Chris Luva Luva wrote:RGIII getting knocked down in the pocket was just as much his fault as it was on the line. Our line is leaky, nobody is saying it's the best line in football. However, it is better than many people here give it credit for.

Let's not forget that Mike told RGIII to get his hands up quicker. Let's not speak as if RGIII is perfect. He has a propensity to wait a bit too long and not throw the ball away, or slide. One of the knocks on him is a lack of pocket presence... RGIII can do more to help his line and his line has room for improvement to keep him a bit more clean.

However, NONE of his injuries occured due to any fault by the linement... The line isn't the issue. It's RGIII's inability to effectively protect himself and his inability to know when to protect himself. If he hadn't blown his knee out, I would have sent him to the Nationals spring camp and made him run bases and slide at every one of them. Do it till you get it right.

Really? This is overkill

In a post where I had nearly 20 sentences, one was about the o-line's dramatic improvements over the course of last year. Plain and simple.

Let me re-phrase myself: "I wasn't impressed with our o-line at the beginning of the pre-season (as a general statement, not specific players). However, I felt they made tremendous progress through the weeks.

This doesn't require an entire thread. Peace out.

HTTRRG3ALMO wrote:Really? This is overkill

In a post where I had nearly 20 sentences, one was about the o-line's dramatic improvements over the course of last year. Plain and simple.

Let me re-phrase myself: "I wasn't impressed with our o-line at the beginning of the pre-season (as a general statement, not specific players). However, I felt they made tremendous progress through the weeks.

This doesn't require an entire thread. Peace out.

My biggest problem with your original post was the use of caps emphasizing that the line was "terrible" at the beginning of the year, when they clearly weren't (we put up 40 on the Saints in NO), and the use of the collective "we" in saying that we were screaming for an O-line all year. As I pointed out you only just joined the board and there wasn't anyone here saying anything negative about the play of the line throughout the season. Then you kept responding with more innacuracies that I wanted to address. I had to start a new thread to address your final post, because the "running down Talib" thread was locked. Sorry if your feelings were hurt.

Chris Luva Luva wrote:RGIII getting knocked down in the pocket was just as much his fault as it was on the line. Our line is leaky, nobody is saying it's the best line in football. However, it is better than many people here give it credit for.

...

I will be happy with the addition of a high quality RT. It is not much to ask, is it? Maybe it is considering the cap hel we are in.

Our offense will evolve this year. It will not be the same as last year. That evolution will pose higher demands on the complexity of the play at the OL. T. Polumbus is more than fine as a backup but just decent as a starter. We will need a more effective and consistent OL this year.

+1

I also am hoping that we will find a way to be better at RT than we were - I like the depth - I'm not convinced that anyone here today can be a decent RT

we did see a lot better play from the O line than we expected - a top 5 offense is awesome

I also agree that Mike, Kyle and RG3 are going to take what we saw last season and upgrade it to something even better

having younger and faster players is becoming the way to put a roster together - some experience is good but, like the saying goes ... "speed kills"

Deadskins wrote:

HTTRRG3ALMO wrote:Really? This is overkill

In a post where I had nearly 20 sentences, one was about the o-line's dramatic improvements over the course of last year. Plain and simple.

Let me re-phrase myself: "I wasn't impressed with our o-line at the beginning of the pre-season (as a general statement, not specific players). However, I felt they made tremendous progress through the weeks.

This doesn't require an entire thread. Peace out.

My biggest problem with your original post was the use of caps emphasizing that the line was "terrible" at the beginning of the year, when they clearly weren't (we put up 40 on the Saints in NO), and the use of the collective "we" in saying that we were screaming for an O-line all year. As I pointed out you only just joined the board and there wasn't anyone here saying anything negative about the play of the line throughout the season. Then you kept responding with more innacuracies that I wanted to address. I had to start a new thread to address your final post, because the "running down Talib" thread was locked. Sorry if your feelings were hurt.

No we're good. I see your point on the "we" comment though (and how that can easily be misinterpreted).

The "we" wasn't everyone on THN, but rather other circles and outlets I'm connected to. That was bad communication on my part.

Whole point of that post is that even with all we're facing this year, we're going to be an even better team in 2013 then we were in 2012.

So all in all, I'm feeling pretty good about where we are under the circumstances...would have been even better if we received compensatory picks for the draft.

Redskin in Canada wrote: I will be happy with the addition of a high quality RT. It is not much to ask, is it? Maybe it is considering the *ARTIFICIAL* cap hel we are in.

There... fixed it for you!

I HATE Mara...

Redskin in Canada wrote:I will be happy with the addition of a high quality RT. It is not much to ask, is it? Maybe it is considering the cap hel we are in.

Our offense will evolve this year. It will not be the same as last year. That evolution will pose higher demands on the complexity of the play at the OL. T. Polumbus is more than fine as a backup but just decent as a starter. We will need a more effective and consistent OL this year.

You could always use someone "better". We could use a better LT. Hell, we could use a "better" QB in certain regards... I think Tyler played well enough. I think he protected RGIII well enough. Yes, I do agree that an upgrade would help. But whoever we put there is gonna get beat some times... And it's gonna be on RGIII. And honestly, those guys can block well enough to keep him pretty clean. He didn't get hurt in the pocket. He got hurt because he can't and won't protect himself.

Would improving the offensive line of a top 5 offensive attack and the line that blocked for Alfred Morris be questioned if RGIII could protect himself?

Chris Luva Luva wrote:

Redskin in Canada wrote:I will be happy with the addition of a high quality RT. It is not much to ask, is it? Maybe it is considering the cap hel we are in.

Our offense will evolve this year. It will not be the same as last year. That evolution will pose higher demands on the complexity of the play at the OL. T. Polumbus is more than fine as a backup but just decent as a starter. We will need a more effective and consistent OL this year.

You could always use someone "better". We could use a better LT. Hell, we could use a "better" QB in certain regards... I think Tyler played well enough. I think he protected RGIII well enough. Yes, I do agree that an upgrade would help. But whoever we put there is gonna get beat some times... And it's gonna be on RGIII. And honestly, those guys can block well enough to keep him pretty clean. He didn't get hurt in the pocket. He got hurt because he can't and won't protect himself.

Would improving the offensive line of a top 5 offensive attack and the line that blocked for Alfred Morris be questioned if RGIII could protect himself?

I get it... But let's not pretend he is getting Drew Breezy protection back there. No need disprove that claim w numbers, cuz I didn't check... point is his pass protection usually gives him all day, making it easier to find the open guy and improving his play. That said, the stats back your claim so far as the run is concerned, but pass protection is the issue- and the stats back that claim. We've improved, and the run protection is great- with the help of a beast rb and dual threat qb... But its far from great.

The Redskins did look pretty rough last season. Think about the beginning. We didn't know what to expect from Trent Williams, he had some baggage about his work ethic. He would show flashes of brilliance and then take plays off...

Lichtensteiger was pretty bad. All in all, Pro Football Focus (the premier source for offensive line grades) said he was the worst run blocking guard.

Montgomery was a cast off. He'd never done much of anything, was forced into action in 2011 and before landing in Washington had been cut by a couple teams.

Chris Chester couldn't hold a job in Baltimore. Seemed wildly overpaid on his contract.

There was no legitimate RT option. Brown was always a question mark.

By the end of the seasons Williams matured into a top flight LT, Chester played up to his contract and Monty cemented himself as one of the best centers in the league. They made some advances.

Sure, LG and RT could be real problems but the Redskins need to make due with what they have. Shanahan has turned castoffs and low draft picks into studs before. This ZBS is effective, and yet, it's not overused. He can find the pieces he needs on veteran minimum deals or in the draft. Out of Pashos, Trueblood and others we should have a much better RT situation than last season.

The O line was a concern BEFORE the season

With that being said, the offense was in the top 5

PLUS

Morris was outstanding - the line gets some credit for that, surely

and

like CLL has been pointing out ...
a lot of the hits and issues that RG3 had were NOT on the line but on his refusal to learn to take what he had and not try and do too much

we do not seem to be as great as we'd like on the right side but I think we need to give it a little more time before we say it will be a disaster

there's going to be a lot of competition for who plays on the right side and there will be a lot of rotation