The two priorities on this team this offseason must be the offensive and defensive lines. I have advocated repeatedly that we prioritize the offensive line in the draft. I have several reasons for doing so. I see the opportunity to abandon the zone blocking scheme. I also see very strong candidates to replace our ENTIRE OFFENSIVE LINE through the draft. I firmly believe that IF Ted Thompson were to trade back in the draft, and with a little luck as regards our Brett pick, this is viable. I recognize immediately and clearly that this would be unprecedented. Don't get confused, though. A critique of Rodgers, Grant, Jackson, Finley, Kuhn, etc. is both highly speculative and largely performed armed with nothing more than ignorance, and I do not mean that in the perjorative sense. It is simply a reality. The concept that the game is won and lost in the trenches is an age-old axiom that seems to get immediately lost when we all start performing critiques and looking for excuses and/or running our various comparisons/agendas/solutions. I am reading, for example, some folks advocating shit-canning (elsewhere) Ryan Grant in favor of Brandon Jackson. The rationale being that, "Ryan Grant can hit a hole, but lacks the explosiveness of Brandon Jackson-- needed in the ZBS" That is pure, unadulterated BULLSHIT. Not because it is or is not true, but more importantly to my point, the author(s) of this theory have NO CLUE if it is true or not, because, thanks to the line and scheme we have, they have NO WAY OF KNOWING, because no one could. I could extend this line of reasoning to our QB, our COACHES, etc. If the plan is to grab an OT or two, do a little shifting around, and perfect the ZBS, for planning purposes, plan on doing a lot of speculating on why we continue to lose football games, and why various and sundry skill position players suck, or look like they do.
On the defensive side of the football, I am much less worried. Why do I say that, when it is so patently obvious that our defense (or lack of one) is SO RESPONSIBLE for our losing. I preface this by saying I do not like the BATES system defensive schemes that really do not attack with the D-line, but I think I can say that I understand why we do it. We need to fix the defensive line. I will reiterate that I am less concerned about this, because I feel that we CAN make some solid moves in FA that will help do so with immediate and measurable impact. I DO NOT think drafting a "beast" DT/DE will bring the same kind of impact we SHOULD receive through FA, as contrasted SHARPLY with draft vs. FA on the offensive line. We could VERY EASILY wind up with a Justin Harrell clone with a very high draft pick. Blaming Ted Thompson in that event is done by folks that do not understand the nature of the position, imo. While true it takes smart fellows to play offensive line, history has shown it is a lot more time consuming to develop a defensive line. I advocate going FA on that d-line for this reason. I know we are all going to discuss Linebackers and coaching ALL off-season, but this goes back to my original argument. We DO NOT DEFINITIVELY KNOW who sucks in that linebacking corps until we FIX the defensive line. It is possible, for example, it will FIX ITSELF this off-season, by improved play, injuries healed, etc. As frustrating as it all is...this IS possible, and must be taken into account as the bitching proceeds.
Be VERY careful when contemplating many of the advocated O-Line FA's that will come available... I have looked hard at that list and am coming away with the strong impression that there is one whole hell of a lot of "products of their system" in there.
I KNOW my plan will not be implemented, but that doesn't make it wrong.
:thumbleft: