If I were going to make excuses for Cable, and I'm not inclined to, I would point to the back-to-back offseasons that we let 2 starters walk simultaneously in FA, causing Cable to have to shuffle 3 or more positions on the line to find the least-worst fit for all the unprovens.
First it was Carp-Unger. Then it was Sweezy-Okung.
Individually, letting go of each player was perfectly defensible, either due to injury history or simply not playing well enough to warrant a second contract which would inevitably result in a slight-to-moderate overpay. However, replacing those 2+ holes in back-to-back seasons DESTROYED our line. Yes Cable was at fault for not grooming players to be worth a second contract, yes Cable was presumably involved in the decision to let them go. At the very least when they asked Cable if it would be okay he nodded yes when he should have been pouring gasoline on himself and threatening to light a match. But after those 2 offseasons the lesson I took was, if you have to overpay on *one* player to prevent the shuffling at 3 or more positions, you do it gladly.
We can quibble on "solid" vs "average" or whatever but Britt was getting pro-bowl consideration last year and was starter-level this year. We are looking at George Fant off an injury at LT, who-knows-what at LG, who-knows-what at RG, and please-God-not-Ifedi at RT.
I agree that Pocic may be best-suited for Center but too bad, that was just a dumb draft move then, because it is suicidal to hold open tryouts at the only position we have any confidence in whatsoever. I would much, much rather see Pocic be depth and/or continue to play temporarily at OG while they evaluate him and Britt.
This is a totally different conversation 1 year from now after we have more data on Britt, Pocic, and Solari. Now if (unlike Cable) Solari is able to make evaluations of players without needing 8 regular-season games first and Solari is comfortable rolling with Pocic, that's a different story. That's possible. But if I'm JS and Pete I'm urging Solari to give them the conservative estimate. Because we saw what happened when Cable blew sunshine up their butts.
