Smith is such a big man and a true road grader that he was definitely worth the gamble - scheme fit or not. Especially since we took a million prospective corners and safety/linebackers. Question with him is going to be if his feet end up being quick enough to not get blown past every play. However, I'm more perturbed that we didn't add another veteran guard. Austin Blythe played both center and guard and was had for a 1 year/$900k deal with three years of starting experience in the wide zone. He was good enough for Andy Reid... Lane Taylor is another veteran I would've taken a one year flyer on at $1.2 million.
Correction. JD used picks 11, 14, 66, & 86 on two linemen in the past two years. I had to suffer through this logic in draft season. Like having too many draft picks is a bad thing because in 4 or 5 years you have to pay them. Or that all of them are going to be pro bowlers. If we actually did draft 3 all pro linemen then first of all we'd have one of the best OLs in the league for the next 4 seasons. In 4 years we decide to keep and who we want and trade one for a ton more draft capital. All pro lineman are extremely valuable on the trading block. I'm tired of reading, "if our whole draft turned out to be all pros we'd be in trouble". How do you think good teams are built. By drafting one or two good players over a 16 year period? Investing a lot into one pick means you also have to be ready to pay the consequences. What happens if you use three top picks on a guard that busts, or goes down for the season. Well there is always next season, and we thrive at being a next season team. Except our QBs rookie year is this season. We are not set at 5 positions on the OL, at least not with quality. With all of the capital we had, both in FA and the draft, I expected our line to have more talent than it currently does. Its not like some line building wizardry was pulled off. We had a ton of resources and JD built a very average line with very little depth. Or are you going to suggest we couldn't use another promising guard or two? Spending a ton of capital on AVT doesn't automatically make him the best guard in the draft. He wasn't projected as a blue chip and everyone in the league will admit we overpaid for him. Form what I've seen from our line so far we aren't "set at 4 positions" with quality talent, especially with Moses on a 1 year deal. And our depth, especially at guard, is alarmingly thin. This is Zach's rookie season and having a stable line for him to develop behind is the most important puzzle piece. We don't really have that yet, and with one or two injuries, he will end up running for his life. Drafting a guard next year does nothing to help that. Building a top o-line should always be the top priority on offense. An offense is only as good as the guys up front. Suggesting that drafting two linemen in two years is enough, while also spending gold on another top 5 QB, is what I consider insane. AVT will have to turn into Quinten Nelson to be worth what we paid for him.
I was talking about how high he picked them. not what it took to get that high. And technically you're still wrong since he then used picks 23, 66, and 86 for vera tucker. but lets not bother with semantics. the point was that he drafted 2 lineman 2 years in a row very high in the draft It doesn't create a well balanced team either. You can have the best o-line but with no defense, no QB, no WRs etc you go nowhere. jets have had a top o-line plenty of years but won no SBs. You have to have a balanced team and you can't afford to blow everything into 1 position. that's the same mistake mac did with the d-line. As long as JD can find solid players to fill the gaps in the mid rounds you don't need 3-4 all pros on an o-line. 1-2 max and 3 solid players will do just fine. we are set at 4 right now. Becton, AVT, Moses, and Mcgovern. 2 are top 10 at their position and the other 2 are young 1st rounders. RG is the only issue spot on the o-line. realistically speaking all 4 of them are pro bowl potential players. What kind of depth do you want? this isn't madden where you have 90 overall players as depth. it's real life and there is a salary cap. any team who suffers a ton of injuries on the o-line will lose. What team in the NFL right now has starter caliber o-lineman on the bench? none. you have to be realistic. chiefs injuries at o-line cost them the superbowl. it happens. the teams that win are usually the one's who stay the healthiest. We need 1 more starting guard and we can take some later picks to develop as backups to replace GVR and feeny and lewis. we still don't know what we have in clark either. as far as AVT goes many teams had him as a blue chip. he was the end of T1 players with a big drop off after him, but that's irrelevant. All that matters is how he does. scouts are wrong all the time. he could bust or be the best in the NFL. we don't know. but you have to trust in JD. next year is next year. we have 2 1st, 2 2nds, and a 3rd and plenty of cap room. we have flexibility and JD can fill holes as needed. football teams are always evolving and are never "set" except in the case of a young FQB and even then you are 1 freak injury away. we thought we were set with pennington for a decade until he got hurt every year. nobody is ever really "set" at anything in the NFL. you have to look at yourself for the current year and give yourself flexibility for the future which is what we have. JD has made it a priority in 2 years he replaced every spot on the o-line. he signed moses to start at RT, he signed fant the year before as a swing tackle. he signed mcgovern the top FA center. he drafted 2 in the 1st. he resigned lewis, signed GVR, and added depth like feeny and mcdermott. he even took a chance on kalil which didn't work. all his moves clearly show o-line is a priority. You just clearly don't seem to get how NFL GMs work or how building a roster works. lay off the madden and have realistic expectation. 32 teams are all trying to do the same. show me 1 that has invested more in the o-line then JD over the past 2 years and yet you are still griping about it? look at jax with their awful o-line about to ruin lawereces career.
I also would've liked to have seen more resources dumped into the offensive line. The defense has been good enough the past couple years with scrubs + adding in an energized Saleh and more traditional simple scheme could've allowed us to just experience growing pains while we fielded a legitimate NFL offense for the first time in six years. I'm never for abandoning a balanced approach, but I was for making the exception this time given how god awful the offense has been. More veterans were needed along the interior of the offensive line and we picked one (Feeney) that the old fan base was high fiving about him leaving...
You were right. After using the #2 on Zach it only made sense to dive in and make a top o-line this years priority in the draft. Knowing we were going to use the #2 pick on a QB should have made o-line a top priority in FA. I don't know why people are having a hard time understanding this? As we currently stand, the potential of Zach getting creamed this season is pretty high.
It DID make OL a high priority in FA. Perhaps you've forgotten than JD went hard after the former NE LG, but when the bidding went too high, he backed out. You can't screw up the team salary structure panicking over a postion on the OL. There weren't many other OL who were really worth anything, and those who were got way overpaid. JD is not going to give big money to older FAs. That's smart. Mac did that and look what happened.
32 teams are all vying for a few players. JD made a run at thuney the top OG, but he wanted to play for a SB so went to the chiefs. Schreff got tagged. He signed moses. Nobody else was out there, so he used a 1st rounder instead. He also added cole and davis and coleman to help the QB in FA and to a lesser extend kroft. Not sure what else you want him to do?
