I was thinking of available players, but then I came across a Wide Receiver! I think Donnie Avery of Houston would be a good second round choice, after we choose McFadden in the first round? What do you think about this?
Not if we sign Andrews and Bender develops. I'd take D'Brick / Bender / Mangold / Moore / Andrews and see what they can do. It'd be nice to be able to go DL in the second. Gholston then Balmer would be beautiful.
Yeah well seeing as how bender has been unable to get on the field even with the piss poor play of Clarke, I have next to no faith in him developing into an above average starting caliber LG in the next 8-9 months...
Because he hasn't done it 3 months into his career? I mean you have a point...but you're saying a rookie is unlikely to do much if he doesn't do much his first full season?
Bender was a long term project. He never pass blocked in college so they have to teach him how to do that before he can try and block any pass rushers. I would love if he could play LG and we signed Andrews but who really knows. Whatever do this offseason we have to fix the LG spot and upgrade RT. We should have 3 picks in the top 70 and plenty of cash to sign some lineman.
While it's possible for Bender to develop into a solid starter, I see no reason to expect him to be ready in 08 when he can't beat out Adrien Clarke.
'08 is a full 10 months away and 9 of those 10 months are spent training and being coached up...I can easily see him being able to beat out Clarke if he works at pass protection.
I wasn't saying he couldn't beat out Clarke this summer. However, considering 99.999% of this board thinks (correctly) that Clarke is a dreadful guard, Bender's ability to be better than Clarke does not mean he should be handed a job. Penciling Bender as a starter in 2008 at any position is a mistake.
...to graduate? or maybe to raise his draft value, so he can slip into the Top 15. He's a poor man's Calvin Johnson. Scouts are going to see his size and speed combo and go crazy.
Oh golly gee, I never considered that. From my post you should have been able to glean that I feel he is ready to play in the NFL right now and that I suspect he'll be a 1st round pick. If he stays in school he might only move up a few spots. He also may graduate this year...or maybe not. He also could graduate years from now.
If the coaching staff thought he was just awful he would have been cut a long time ago. None of us really know what's going on with him but they knew he played in an option offense in college and therefore would have a huge adjustment learning to pass block at the pro level. It's possible their goal all along was to spend the first year coaching him up every day in practice in preparation of him competing to start next year. Maybe they didn't want to throw him out there late in the season since the line was such a mess it might have hurt his development. Anyhow i'm trying to make myself believe that he will be our RT next year but I have zero evidence of this. If Bender is the right tackle that would save the team a large amount of money that could be spent elsewhere. I fully expect the front office to make a run at a veteran left guard. I'd like to see Jacob Bell since he is just entering his prime. The front office has to feel good about the offensive line going into the draft. They can't risk that Jake Long is not available when they pick if he is the guy they are targeting at 6. So if we say the offensive line next year is Brick, Bell, Mangold, Moore, Bender/free agent vet RT. Now they can go into the draft and focus on getting a dynamic front 7 player on defense in the first round.
