How Much of an Experiment is Moving MW to LG?

[Nanker]

You know, before the season I like many hoped for a bigger player at center. But, after looking at most teams centers, Teague is actually one of the bigger centers in the league and has played pretty darn good this year.  I think Teague stays right where he is.

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He's been injured. Tucker's been there the past four weeks. Hmmm. I'd put him in at RT - he is a natural tackle afterall. He's been a failed experiment as a center IMHO.

 

Four weeks on the Bench

 

The Buffalo Bills expect to have center Trey Teague back in the starting lineup Sunday when they meet the New York Jets.

 

Teague has been out the past four weeks with a hairline crack in a bone in his leg. He practiced fully with the first team Wednesday at Ralph Wilson Stadium.

[JStranger76]

Why do people continue to think Teague can play RT? You know, our current RT has been playing pretty well lately.................

[Fake-Fat Sunny]

He's been injured. Tucker's been there the past four weeks. Hmmm. I'd put him in at RT - he is a natural tackle afterall. He's been a failed experiment as a center IMHO.

 

Four weeks on the Bench

 

The Buffalo Bills expect to  have center Trey Teague back in  the starting lineup Sunday when  they meet the New York Jets.

 

    Teague has been out the past  four weeks with a hairline crack  in a bone in his leg. He practiced  fully with the first team Wednesday at Ralph Wilson Stadium.

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Now let me get this straight. You propose making our starting OL RT-Teague, RG- Villareal, C- Tucker, LG- MW, LT- JJ?

 

I doubt this will happen since:

 

1 Teague's pro experience has been at center most recently for the Bills and at LT for Denver before that. Bringing him in from injury to a new position seems unlikely.

2. Tucker has held the fort nicely at center, with good games against the Cards and Miami to his credit, but I don't tink anyone is hailing any of the O performances against the Ravens. I think he adds a lot to this team with his work, but we're still looking for more at center and Teague was playing well there before his injury.

3. MW should as ICE offers be able to make the switch to guard, but why do this if he has played as recently as last week at a level which brought him a gameball for his RT performance. Will the overal performance of the OL be improved by a moving MW to a new positio, putting Teague at a new position, counting on Tucker to play more like he did against the Cards and less like he did against the Ravens, and benching Smith.

 

Maybe, but I doubt it.

 

What seems to make more football sense to me is:

 

LT- Jennings for now, though I think he likely will be gone as an FA in the off-season. I like the fact that Price is backing him up because his past fragility makes this essential to have Price rather than McFarland or some three-rail billiard shot plan B. It makes sense to try him where he has done well before.

LG- Smith for now, his development from UDFA Ravens PS levels to starter is more than can reasonably be expected, but after the failure of Sullivan Pucillo we needed radical help. He has the expected shortcomings for a player of his youth and inexperience, but playing Bannan at LG in the redzone 6-12 plays a game is a nice fill-in in the areas he needs to improve. Since the run gameis effective with WM and him playing for the most part and even the pass pro was effective with him playing for the most part, continuing to give him work to improve for 2005 seems reasonable.

C- Teague for now and it is to be hoped the future. His play really turned a corner before his injury as he seemed to put the individual pieces together so he could multi-task and at the same time and not have one part of his game so south (occaisionally being easily bullrushed onto his butt in Bledsioe's lap when he focused too much on line call changes, shotgun snaps or other duties. Hr seemed to get it al together and it will be a test to see whether he has retained or even improved this ability with his enforced absence. Tucker provided a great back-up and is a bright guy (a former Princetonian) but if Teague can come back it gives us a lot of flexibility and it makes sense to try him where he has done well before.

RG- Villareal is pretty solid here and it makes sense to try him where he has done well before.

RT- MW has extraordinary problems that have raised legitimate questions about moving him to LG at some point. However, such a move would seem to be panicking from my point of view and premature as:

A. In college he showed great agility for such a big guy and the handling of the speed rushers (particularly on the QBs seeing side and what is usually the TE side is less of an issue than it is for the LT naked on the QBs blindside).

B. His onfield problems his first two years seem more closely linked in my analysis to him not having the communication and Pro help this youngster and rookie needed as Sullivan (since cut) and Pucillo (less experience than even MW abd since demoted) where his partners in blocking at RG and it all was under the inexperienced Vinklarek and Ruel. A 4th pick can be hoped and expected to triumph even with this non-help, but he didn't and thems just the facts. He now has Villareal by his side and JMac providing a framework so letting them work rather than a panicked move (as ICE prescribes) based on desperation (as Rico has described) would not be the thing to do at this time.

C. MW showed further problems when he failed to train and his weight balloned this off-season. However, the clear cause of this failing seems to be the death of the grandmother who raised him as a Mom, This is understandable from a human perspective, but reality simply demands more from a professional perspective if you are going to take the big bucks MW has taken. JMac and others seemed to have done right things in terms of adjusting his attitude by publicly raising the potential of him moving to LG when like it or not the big bucks are at T under last year's cap 9 of the top 10 OL cap hits were tackles and the 1 guard was the cap cut Ruben Brown). His earning a gameball for his performance Sunday may well be a sigh he has turned the corner and moving him to LG before the off-season if ever seems unlikely.

 

At any rate this strikes me as our likely line-up and a logical one. I cn easily be wrong asI am not in the lockerroom and I don't see them practice. In particular, the use of Bannan at LG may be a sign that JMac and the braintrust do not see Smith as the answer and having run through their other two reasonable plans of Pucillo and Sullivan they went to the D as a last straw.

 

However, Smith did play the vast majority of Sunday's game at LG and WM ran productively and there were no sacks so it seems a lot more likely that Bannan came in to help and did help with the redzone deficits of Smith rather than overall deficits that would force the team to do something radical like try the alchemy of turning Bannan into a full time LG or creating an opening at RT by moving MW, disrupting the need back-up tackle position by shifting Price to a starter and complicating the rehab of Teague.