daveboling
April 11, 2015 at 12:17 pm
I think Cable is a terrific coach. Terrific. I’ve spent a lot of time watching his unit in practice. He’s so organized. His drills are so quick that they make the guys make their decisions and use the proper mechanics under stress — like in a game. It creates a pretty smart group up there and that’s why they’ve been able to change things around on the fly during the season.
I think he’s contributed heavily to this being the best rushing offense in the NFL. I think that’s why we need to think of him as “run coordinator” rather than just O-Line coach. I’ve heard people say that he “likes to take low-round guys and develop them.” I think he’d love to get really talented guys, he just hasn’t really had many. I think the problem with Carpenter from the start was that he didn’t show up in shape and because of injuries he almost never got his feet under him. I thought at the start of last season felt like he was finally in good shape and was getting used to LG … like he was maybe a second-year guy with a lot of room to improve. He may still develop, but paying him $5 million was not something that was going to happen here.
The fact that this team made it to the Super Bowl two years ago with Okung, Breno and Max out so many games was extraordinary. Cable got those guys as ready as they could be, pieced together a scheme that sheltered them as much as possible, and Wilson and Lynch did much of the rest.
Where I consider the O-line the greatest liability is that your two most valuable assets on offense, Wilson and Lynch, rely on the offensive line to reduce the beating they take over the course of the season. They’ve been lucky so far, but there have been games when I wonder how either of them made it through. No matter how they fill those spots this season, there’s going to be a learning curve to deal with, and there’s risks involved there. Plugging in undrafted free agents may get you from Sunday to Sunday, but could be costly in the long run.