CodeWarrior":296eh5ev said:
You can't have our frugal approach to the OL then put your first round OL picks inside. Those guys HAVE to play outside. I may be an idiot (probably am) but given his draft position and our OL approach Ifedi should be our starting RT. If that wasn't the plan I'd have rather taken Jason Spriggs and put him at LT.
Why can't you slide them inside first ? I'll give you an example:
Justin Britt was a "reach" at RT, coming out of a spread offense. He was deemed raw and would need an adjustment period to the NFL, in splits, footwork, etc. He started as a rookie and was pretty bad in pass protection, yet good in run blocking. Yet he was deemed a "bust" and a spectacular fail by all the OL "experts" on the internet (I'm not saying .net as it was consistent across a lot of fan sites). So he was put at LG; my theory is that they needed him there more than RT, but most people theorize that he washed out spectacularly and was moved inside. No 2nd year, no other chances.
So he's never played LG, and he fails spectacularly. So he's slid inside to the cacophony of calls of "bust!" from said internet OL experts. Now he's slid inside to Center, which he's never played. He's looking like one of the better Centers in the league in his first year.
You either deal with growing pains on the outside, or you deal with growing pains on the inside. With the glut of spread offenses in college football, it's common knowledge that guys are coming out and taking a year or two to acclimate to the NFL and make an impact.
Maybe, just maybe, Cable learned from that mistake and started Ifedi inside out. I don't think we had a great plan at Tackle, but Gilliam also looks worse than he did last year.
