The offensive line on Sunday was, well, not good. It seemed like on most dropbacks guys were on skates. Bad protection killed chances to get the ball downfield.
Which leads me to my question, is the coaching staff putting the right people in the right spot on the starting oline? The team made some head scratching decisions vs the 49ers in the divisional round by:
1. Starting RT Billy Turner, coming back from injury that caused him to miss the last 3 regular season games, at LT over Yosh Njiman who'd started 8 games at the position.
2. Starting Josh Myers, who was on IR since week 6 and activated a week and a half before the game, over Lucas Patrick who had started at C when Myers went down.
3. Starting Patrick at RG over Royce Newman who started 16 games at RG.
Of the 3, #2 is the only one that seems defensible on paper since Myers can probably move guys better in the run game. I suppose they wanted Patrick and his experience at RG but it doesn't feel like he's a big enough improvement to override the disruption to the continuity of playing Newman at RG. This leads to this past Sunday:
1. Starting Jake Hanson, a C in college and who quite frankly doesn't seem like anything other than a career backup, at RG
2. Starting Newman at RT
3. Leaving Zach Tom, who practiced every where on the oline in training camp and never looked out of place, on the bench
Again, #2 is the only one that looks alright on paper since Newman played RT in college. But why Hanson over ZT? Why not ZT at RG and Newman at RT or vis versa? This is the 2nd game in a row where it feels like the coaching staff has made questionable decisions on the oline. Are they overthinking it? Are they too concern with how a guy fits in the scheme? What say you?