AKC

Stop making sense. Even among the better lines in the league it's not uncommon for them to be looking at one or two new starters next season; Green Bay, Indy, New England, Pittsburgh and Philly come to mind. With arguably our best fitting 3 linemen returning to play in the Clements running scheme our position might even be considered desirable by most league standards. Our failure to participate in the high FA bidding for the pieces we do desire might most accurately be recognized as a testament to TDs good discipline- imagine if we were looking at the hefty Rivera (a guy whose skills I liked a lot for us) contract along with his disc surgery? The Donahoe detractors would be grinding their tooth nubs right to the gum now had we gone in that direction. Wahle's cap hits over the next 3 years would kill us somewhere else- probably TE- and this offense will not be playoff-ready without a superior run blocking TE who can make some third down grabs. Campbell had developed very good technique and feel for the offense but he's a mid-level contributor coming off a very bad injury for his spot on the field. I think the complaints right now are merely due to the lack of a media friendly signing- but it was just a year ago that the Villarial pickup drew virtually no positive media and TSW attention yet he was one of the best value prop FA signings of the '04 off-season, in fact for my money Villarial was the single best FA siging last off-season. I credit the guy smart enought to make it happen in a workable cap scenario. I'm watching intently to see how he trumps that work.

But Villairal can move his feet- Tucker is more like a big Weeble on the field. It's hard for me to imagine having an interior running game with Tucker doing the defense's job of plugging up the middle.

Translations: >>2. May shift Teague back to LT. All depends what happens in Free Agency. It's an option. We're still desperately in the hunt for a LT and we strategically have to suggest Trey playing well out of postion there in a power running scheme simply to make us look less desperate to any FA prospects. >>3. Justin Bannon will continue to get some work at OG, where he looked good in short yardage and goal line situations. We're trying everything we can to squeeze something out of the 5th round pick we spent on Justin but the reality is he's got no chance at all of ever starting full time at a OG spot in this league. His Turk may not wait for Thanksgiving. >>4. Jason Peters will resume his conversion to OT. When Special Team drills end we don't want Jason to have too much down time so we're keeping him occupied with line practice. See item #9. >>5. Talks about the versitility of many lineman - Gandy can play OT and OG, Tucker can play C and OG, McFarland can play OT and OG. None of these guys are skilled enough to be considered "good" at any one position so we'll justify their roster space my pointing out that they can play multiple positions. Mike Pucillo was versatile too. >>6. No mention of moving Mike Williams to LT. Williams is looking more and more likely to end up at LT. >>8. Bills will probably look at more OL after Womack. Pork Chop's merely here because he heard good things about the wings. >>9. TD suggested they would like to see some of these Lineman play a couple positions in spring mini-camp and then decide where to place them, going into camp. TD's interested in Anderson and Edwards getting the feel for blowing up lots of different inferior players in practice. Now let me go find a good cat thread to distract me from my regular work schedule and I'll prepare for the 2006 season, the one our management appears to be targeting to actually try and contend for something.

I'm fairly sure the decision is still in the air at OBD at this moment. I'm also inclined to concede the LT/RT model is becoming far more amorphus in this age of flexible packages and line roles on the defensive side of the ball. The days of the best big athlete for the defense playing at the RDE position have changed enough that both tackles need to cover well laterally in pass protection and defensive overloads on running plays are as likely to happen on one side as the other. The bottom line in the NFL today is that short of a physical anomaly restricting play to one side or the other, a good OT should be able to man either spot.

He started 8 games for the Seahawks last year, giving up 4 sacks while being assessed one holding call and one false start. He played on a line that was one of the least effective in the league in short yardage rushing and probably the worst sign is that the right side of Seattle's line was far and away the least productive direction for their backs to run.

That's the same conclusion I've reached as contract numbers have been made available for our need spots- watching OGs signing 4.5 million dollar a year contracts does nothing to excite me about making that type of investment when our OL coach is sure to know some of the players who will end up loose in June. While we might not expect equal quality, we might very well expect to get near quality at 1/3rd the price, allowing us to focus our cap space on other need areas. I also would be surprised to see us making any short term moves, the management appears content to make 2006 a year they expect to make a run and the cap strategy seems especially friendly to that 2006 season at this point.

Dominick Denucci and Chief White Owl cage match with Cin as the ring girl?

What did I miss that they'd just push him out of Pitt? Post Gazette Plaxico

I'm looking back into your posting history and nowhere at all do I find you extolling a 9-7 winning record for the 2004 campaign. Am I to assume that all your posts predicting how we would win more than 9 games have been deleted, or should I simply recognize that statements like the one above are indicative of the accuracy vacuum in everything you post?

No doubt he has straight ahead, single plane speed that his size suggests against- it's when he's asked to apply it in football terms that it looks to me like it changes completely. In some ways like Antonio Brown, a guy who had this tremendous movement straight ahead but if he was asked to make the slightest adjustment laterally he became a regular Joe. On STs that one way speed makes Peters a big contributor, and probably one of the keys to our resurgent coverage units, but from scrimmage he hasn't shown any sign of the type of movement you want a TE to use to shake a defender, instead he's been very utilitarian. Maybe getting down to the upper 200s in weight would help him, it surely wouldn't hurt his ST game at all.

He dressed for something like 3 early games and the finale in Pitt. I figure Krumrie simply wants him to get stronger and develop his hands before relying on him to contribute in meaningful contests. I'd also bet the team watched PWilliams getting singled on almost evey passing down while Sam drew the doubles, and consequently they felt they could put a better value proposition next to Sam with at least similar results. We shall see- one thing that seems clear is that Ron Edwards is nowhere near the tackler that Pat is. The guy who will pay for that if Edwards starts will be LFletcher- can he take a year of bringing down backs regularly showing up at his level with a head of steam?

I thought the draft book on him included a very good first 3 steps in pass rushing?

The value proposition of carrying a guy who obviously doesn't fit your O model anymore in the first 2 slots at his primary position plus will be easily replaced with a real CB at a lesser salary makes the move the right one for the good of their talent pool. The deeper question is whether the well begins to dry up on the "team" campaign with these types of moves and to date with Belichick it hasn't. You can't argue with the rings- then again if I had a Cohiba for every genius who returned to a steady diet of cans in this league I wouldn't have all that space in my humidor right now.

Outside of STs at the very least I'd expect to see him play off either tackle as an eligible lineman on most of our goal line series and short yardage plays considering Losman will surely have roll outs called down in tight or 3rd/4th and short. He hasn't shown the foot speed to play TE in the open field, he right now remains simply a big guy with good speed and burst for his size- not good speed when compared to many 240 pound TEs.

I've been assuming they might also figure that he's run the course in the makeup of our division and his value to us is consequently lower. I like Pat and he remains a superior tackler at the LOS for a big body in the run game, but his ability to split the gap on passing downs has declined over the past few years. He'll be paid for the 2.5 sacks he got from the interior last year but I don't recall him showing the suprising foot burst he had earlier in his career. With the need to push the pocket early playing high on divisional priorities it's not out of the question that the team feels PWs playing time would be decreased in '05 in favor of an emerging REdwards, and if his time were to be reduced it's tough to pay him starters money. An indication of this is that the team has shown a preference to giving Sam Adams the interior spot in pass D packages over the past two years.

Pat's fans aren't bitching about employing the biggest cheap shot safety in the league.

One of the nastiest 340 pound OGs in the league, his quad troubles have spanned the past two seasons. If there's a chance he could be ready (100%) to play by pre-season he'd improve the left side of our line by about 500%.

It's been an impressive run for the most part, typically credited to their attention to acting ability and script development. While I'm a fan of both of those dynamics, what strikes me that the intangible with the most influence though is Bochco's own struggle between his socio-political leanings versus his desire to offer some understanding of a profession that's so contradictory to the same. That internal fight to me shows up in almost every episode and it's what IMO establishes his historical superiority in the 60 minute format on the small screen.

Yeah, what the heck does Parcells know about football anyway? He oughta' come over and spend some of his time on this board if he wants to learn something about the Quarterback position ;-)

I realized that by completely arching my back the pounding was easier to take, but it was still brutal in those huge waves even then. Don't think I haven't paid attention rapt to every body surfing broken neck on the news out here since then! My ship was at 32nd Street one summer and I headed up to OB with a dusted spleef. Burned it myself and foolishly went for a swim that found me about 1/2 mile offshore in a rip. In my adrenalized state I swam like a madman straight to shore and then slept if off face down in the sand for what must have been two hours. Freakin' worst sunburn of my life, any shirt I put on basically became part of my back. OUCH! LABilz- When you're ready for a trip to Carillo let me know- say you have some nephews visiting from back home, etc ;-)

If we were simply looking to upgrade from those two I'm guessing our 5th round pick might take care of that ;-) Actually with a real dedication in the off-season to the old "Bob Lanier" strategy of jumping rope 7 hours a day between sprints might just help Mr. Smith on his way to playing productive ball in the NFL. He strikes me as struggling too much with his basic coordination and that's not necessarily a fatal flaw if he's willing to bust his butt to overcome it. It's possible his reactions will prove less than NFL caliber but it wouldn't surprise me to see his struggles so far dissipate. The trenches of the NFL are a tough enough assignment for a starter from Michigan let alone a raw kid who played at Tennessee State with a stop in NFLE as his best training prior to what amounted to his rookie season last year.

I can't see Hamilton as a fit in our system at all simply because of his dimunitive size and Garza, Mayberry and Anderson in '04 were seives in pass protection compared to the top OGs. DeMulling is a big contributor in the Indy offense because he's got such good technique in pass protection, IMO our real need though is for a power run blocker first- a guy along the lines of CVillarial. I think you get that with either of the Green Bay OGS and Andruzzi is tough to argue against: Dixon is the wild card- does he have the gas left in his tank to perform at the level he has for 11 seasons? He seems to be getting bigger every year and that will no doubt catch up with him. Question is will it be in '05?

I'll share a little WNY meets SoCal story that might put this storm in perspective- I moved to Santa Monica in 1983 and the first summer I was here there were some "major storms" that ended up on national news with houses in Malibu getting washed out on their beachfronts. Of course, the storm seemed like nothing to a WNYer and I didn't think twice about heading to a legendary Body Surfing beach above Malibu called Leo Carillo. I was interested in trying my hand at something I had never done, and when I got there a group of local kids watched me swim out into the waves. I figured at some point I'd have to turn around and catch a wave back in and I have to say, for a first timer I was blown away by the feeling of having my body basically in a Superman carry lifted in the air until the wave swallowed me before the shore and tossed me with some pretty serious force down the bottom of the ocean. After a bit of a struggle to get back up for air I turned around and went back for an additional dozen or so rides before finally going onshore. I wondered why the group of kids was sitting there and I asked as I walked by "that's awesome, don't you guys body surf?" to which one responded " not in 9 foot breakers dude". I won't be going out to Carillo today, but it's not because the waves are any worse than they were that day ;-)

Wahle will surely get interest, but I happen to think they have two quality OGs and both are UFAs. The fact that they're over the cap by 3Mill or so might make it difficult for them to offer much to Rivera on the other side and he might end up going FA just to get a market rate for a good OG.

When looking for quality OGs this off-season it might be prudent to watch the movement from another NFL small market cold weather city ;-)