No snark intended, if that's how it came off. But honestly, our OL wasn't anything to write home about prior to these changes. It was beyond atrocious to start the year, and yeah, Bates added some stability but it was anywhere in the spectrum between a pile of 💩 -->🤮 -->🗑️-->😬-->😐--> "just 👌." "pass blockers vs. run blockers..." To quote Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg, "Blah blah blah!!" We weren't a good run blocking OR a pass blocking team!! The 'impressive' sack/qb hit numbers etc. are really just a testament to how much of a beast Allen can be. But I'm not gonna insult you because you're obviously a knowledgeable and I know I'm not saying anything you don't know. But let's not pretend like we are blowing up some great unit and it should've remained as is. I'm not as bullish about Spencer Brown as most are, but I remain excited about the possibilities of what he can do w/ Kromer now than I was before. It's also not as if Kromer doesn't know a sh**ton about pass blocking, either.
Bobby Johnson, imo, seemed like a MAJOR weak link and while, obviously, I was not in the building and haven't ANY details or evidence about the specific goings-on within, it's just mind-boggling what went on with Spain and Teller. He's had botched job after botched job since he joined in 2019. First Wyatt, then the perplexing situation leading to trading Spain for a bag of coupons after benching him for... erm... Brian Winters (yeah... I don't like to think about it either). Idk if Cody Ford might possibly be significantly better than how he's played, but Johnson has had a big hand in it and it wouldn't surprise me at all this year (or if/when he moves on from Buffalo since his reputation is in the dumpster right now) it turns out he was decent or even pretty good and he was just completely broken by how things were run during recent times here.
At the very least, I'm very surprised there's all this premature apprehension and concern that we're just gonna turn JA into a RB-belly feeder and it's going to be about "time of possession" and "slowing the game down," and [insert w/e other similar cliché here]. We're putting the cart miles ahead of the horse and starting a hilariously premature worry campaign that this team is gonna somehow put governor on the offense and Josh Allen entering his prime... before they have even had a single practice!, let alone a single game rep.
The way I see it is that the OL was one of the only parts of this team that was anywhere from a real liability, to subpar, mediocre, and serviceable last season. If anything, the changes should excite people. I'd be way more frustrated if we just kept almost everything the same like we did last year.