We have the 3rd highest average draft position o-line

[Seymour]

Well it doesn't mean a whole lot really. Check out statistics league wide on 1st round picks alone and that will tell you enough.

Yet there are so many out there (safely say vast majority) claiming teams like Dallas is good because they have all the high picks. Can't have it both ways.

 

[seahawkfreak]

http://seahawksdraftblog.com/monday-notes-dont-just-blame-it-on-the-o-line

I guess some in this thread would like to cut the OL and start from scratch. What good would that do?

You may not like it but the 8 guys the Hawks dressed are the OL this season. The best thing for the Hawks to do is to stay the course and of course they will and they don't give a s&&& what you think of it. All lines need time to integrate. So what if you have a problem with it. Like I said earlier - this has been beaten to death.

STRAWMAN! This line already sucks and has, very baldly, the past 3 three years. Why isn't this line better than 2015? 2016? Was there a change of strategy that we should give some time? The reason there is no time given to integration is because this line is as bad as previous line decisions.

This subject has not reached a "beaten to death" fact. This part of our team is a very, very bad part of our history and is only growing.

I bet someone could make an argument that this line is worse than the 2002 Houston Texans.

 

[vin.couve12]

Well it doesn't mean a whole lot really. Check out statistics league wide on 1st round picks alone and that will tell you enough.

Yet there are so many out there (safely say vast majority) claiming teams like Dallas is good because they have all the high picks. Can't have it both ways.

Dallas goes for much larger OL where their sort of innate nastiness lends to greater gains than technicalities regarding scheme.

I've was always a big Buddy Ryan fan as a kid. I didn't know it at the time, but I loved the mid 80s Bears defense and also the very late 80s/early 90s Eagles defense. I learned later that they were coached by the same guy. Anyway, he was famous for finding gritty, mean and nasty gems all over the place. He said he generally knew it when he talked to them before the draft or otherwise.

Kam said the same thing about his backup rook....can't remember his name, but that means something. Not that this has anything to do with anything, but it's different styles of thought and maybe an ineptitude as well....I had a few with my wife so don't mind me...

 

[vin.couve12]

Yeah, yeah....maybe we have problems identifying a mentality. Or maybe we're looking for the wrong one. We don't on defense, like Buddy, but also like Buddy, we don't seem to identify much on OL.

Either way, these are all "compound problems." The OL isn't the only problem.

 

[adeltaY]

Which means nothing.

Aaron Curry, Jason Smith, Ryan Leaf.

Plus, you're including Joekel, whom we did not pick. We picked him up off the street after the team that drafted Luke cut him.

Draft position means NOTHING.

Tom Brady, Russell Wilson, Doug Baldwin, Chris Carson....


To say that they can't identify and develop talent, then include Luke Joekel, invalidates your argument.

Like Brock Huard says, "Figures Lie, and Liars Figure."

Those guys are major outliers. There are plenty of busts in the early rounds and you hear about them more precisely because they failed to live up to their draft status. There are hundreds of late round picks whom no one cares to recall who also fail to make an impact.

The real problem is that the Seahawks have been picking in the late first round, and that's the earliest given trade downs and trading first round picks. The stud OL are long gone by pick 20. The Hawks never have a chance to get the guys who are both technically sound and highly athletic. They'd have to trade up quite a bit to do it and it would handicap them later in the draft. So, they have to go the route of picking guys who are highly athletic, but raw, because they're the best ones left.

The problem is, that it isn't working so well and we can see that other teams are doing better jobs of it. Look at the Packer's line that held up pretty well against a very strong Seattle pass rush:

Bakhtiari (4th round) - elite pass blocking LT
Lane Taylor (UDFA) - solid LG
Corey Linsley (5th) - very good center
Jahri Evans (4th) - FA signing, and we cut him last season
Kyle Murphy (6th) - not good, but played acceptably against Bennett/Clark/Avril in his first start. Not disastrous like our OL
[Bryan Bulaga was a 1st round pick but he didn't play]

 

[mrt144]

Which means nothing.

Aaron Curry, Jason Smith, Ryan Leaf.

Plus, you're including Joekel, whom we did not pick. We picked him up off the street after the team that drafted Luke cut him.

Draft position means NOTHING.

Tom Brady, Russell Wilson, Doug Baldwin, Chris Carson....


To say that they can't identify and develop talent, then include Luke Joekel, invalidates your argument.

Like Brock Huard says, "Figures Lie, and Liars Figure."

Ummm im not sure brock huard platitudes are compelling evidence that draft position doesnt have some correlation to performance. Nor does naming guys.

 

[chris98251]

Identifying existing talent that fist your scheme and needs versus trying to create it from scratch is another thing, Pocic looks good and was said to be one of the most polished college guys, yet he is not out there, his technique is much better then most of our starters, Pete even said he had great technique this pre season and is smart and talented. I wonder why they are holding him out if only because they have nobody else that can play Center active.

 

[Seafan]

Identifying existing talent that fist your scheme and needs versus trying to create it from scratch is another thing, Pocic looks good and was said to be one of the most polished college guys, yet he is not out there, his technique is much better then most of our starters, Pete even said he had great technique this pre season and is smart and talented. I wonder why they are holding him out if only because they have nobody else that can play Center active.

IDK but if I had to guess I would say experience and strength, plus his arms are short for a tackle the position most feel needs the upgrade. I can see him moving right into LG next season and letting Joeckel walk. For now he backs up 3 or four positions which is an important thing. He's likely getting most of his practice reps at LG with some at center.

 

[CodeWarrior]

We didn't draft Joeckel, but we paid him $8M to come here, so that speaks to talent evaluation I'd say.

 

[brimsalabim]

We didn't draft al of our players. Some of them were drafted by other teams and failed there first before being shoved into our starting line up.

 

[Seymour]

This whole idea that draft position means nothing just needs to stop.

Do people really understand what they are saying with this comment?

The highest draft position means you get first shot at selecting talent.

It means you have the best chance to get the player you want.

It means you have the highest chance of success.

It means you have a greater value player by all measurable standards.

It actually means thousands of things more than nothing.

Draft position does not mean guaranteed success, that is as far as it goes. Otherwise, why not turn all early round picks into all 5-7th round picks and compile massive picks, after all, "a 1st round pick is the same value as a 7th round pick." :roll:

This thread and research is very helpful. It tells us we are not at any real disadvantage in building our line with young talent. As far as us not selecting Joeckel, well we selected Ifedi in the 1st, we are paying Joeckel $8M to play guard which puts him near the upper part of guards. So IMO we have stamped a somewhere in the first round pick on him.

 

[BullHawk33]

As I read your list, it doesn't really matter who drafted a starting player, just what round they were drafted and who they are playing for now, correct? For instance, James Carpenter (25th) plays for the Jets but was drafted by Seattle. Max Unger (49th) and Russell Okung (6th) also were picked by the Seahawks but are starting for other teams.

We don't have a talent issue in Seattle and I think your list does a good job of pointing it out. We all know we don't keep linemen past their 4 year contracts for the most part and as we can see by the list of 3 players above, there are plenty of ex-Seahawks that are starting in the NFL.

So if the talent isn't an issue then I would say the zone blocking scheme (ZBS) itself is at fault. The reason it takes so long for a line to gel is that all the permutations take time to develop. It isn't something the players dealt with in college. It isn't always the same for each line front. On Monday's discussion on one of the radio stations, Pete referred to a specific play where the lineman that looked to have missed the block wasn't at fault. The net result that I took from Pete was that the actual scheme isn't really apparent from just looking at the replay even if a free running defender seems to have been running in a gap that Joekel (for example) appeared to be closest to.

The ZBS is just too complicated of a system with the way we are cycling through our linemen. It doesn't give our new players enough time to learn it to be successful and it is too nuanced to pick it up quickly. We either need to change our personnel planning and keep some of our offensive line starters that know ZBS on the roster or we need a new offensive line scheme that our players can pick up quickly as they cycle through our team each year.

In a way I don't necessarily see this as a coaching issue except that it just takes way too long to coach linemen up on the scheme.

Here is a link to an article talking about the ZBS for those that want to know more: https://www.fieldgulls.com/football-bre ... -tom-cable

 

[Seymour]

Well it doesn't mean a whole lot really. Check out statistics league wide on 1st round picks alone and that will tell you enough.

Yet there are so many out there (safely say vast majority) claiming teams like Dallas is good because they have all the high picks. Can't have it both ways.

Dallas goes for much larger OL where their sort of innate nastiness lends to greater gains than technicalities regarding scheme.

I've was always a big Buddy Ryan fan as a kid. I didn't know it at the time, but I loved the mid 80s Bears defense and also the very late 80s/early 90s Eagles defense. I learned later that they were coached by the same guy. Anyway, he was famous for finding gritty, mean and nasty gems all over the place. He said he generally knew it when he talked to them before the draft or otherwise.

Kam said the same thing about his backup rook....can't remember his name, but that means something. Not that this has anything to do with anything, but it's different styles of thought and maybe an ineptitude as well....I had a few with my wife so don't mind me...

That has nothing to do with the conversation we are having on draft selection position. They have higher draft valued players that produce better than most, yet our picks consumed more resource. We are not at a disadvantage there. That is the point being made.

 

[HawkGA]

I compiled a list of all week 1 starters, plus projected starters for TB and Miami, and swapped Duane Brown into the Texans lineup despite his holdout. I then looked up each player's overall draft position. For undrafted players, they were assigned 255, although there was actually a player drafted 255, but most drafts end by then. I then averaged them all out. Only the Redskins and Browns have higher average draft position among their five o-line starters, and they both have pretty damn good o-lines.

This is more fuel for the fire that Cable sucks at developing linemen, although Joeckel wasn't drafted and developed by the Seahawks and is skewing the numbers. An interesting thing about this list is the only o-line comparable to the Seahawks last year was the Vikings, and they are dead last in average draft position. This is an indictment on both their ability to identify talent in the draft and their ability to develop it.

Team - Average
WAS - 49
CLE - 52.6
SEA - 65.6
NYG - 74
BUF - 78.8
DAL - 80.4
LAR - 80.8
HOU - 81.6
NO - 82.4
MIA - 85.4
DET - 90
ARI - 92.8
CAR - 102.4
ATL - 105.6
CIN - 108.2
KC - 108.4
CHI - 113.8
PHI - 121
IND - 121.8
PIT - 123
TB - 123.4
NE - 123.8
OAK - 124
TEN - 125.6
DEN - 128.6
SF - 130.4
GB - 131.2
NYJ - 135.2
JAX - 140.8
LAC - 160.2
BAL - 161
MIN - 162

[youtube]VdO4fOAGzsM[/youtube]

 

[hawknation2017]

Looking at average draft position of starters isn't really a good way to express value. You have to look at cap dollars, where we are setting the floor.

Rees Odhiambo was a 3rd round pick. Does that make him a good player? He is not explosive, strong, long, quick, or experienced.

Luke Joeckel obviously is not a first round quality player. He signed a one-year "prove it" deal.

Another consideration is that the Seahawks are picking near the bottom of these rounds. Getting the 31st pick in Germain Ifedi is not really the same as getting a Top 10 pick in Tyron Smith or Jack Conklin.

 

[Seymour]

....So if the talent isn't an issue then I would say the zone blocking scheme (ZBS) itself is at fault. The reason it takes so long for a line to gel is that all the permutations take time to develop. It isn't something the players dealt with in college.

I used to think that myself. I've moved on from that after looking further into this. It is clearly more coaching than scheme, at least here it is.
Here is a list of teams using the ZBS.....

Teams that relied on a zone blocking scheme

1959–1967: Green Bay Packers [HC Vince Lombardi][3]
1984–1991: Cincinnati Bengals [HC Sam Wyche]
1995–2009: Denver Broncos [HC Mike Shanahan and Josh McDaniels (kept scheme in first year)]
1999–Present: University of Iowa [HC Kirk Ferentz]
2001–2007: West Virginia University [HC Rich Rodriguez]
2001–2008: Bowling Green State University [HC Urban Meyer and Gregg Brandon]
2002–2006: University of Minnesota [HC Glen Mason]
2003–2004: University of Utah [HC Urban Meyer]
2004–2006: Atlanta Falcons [HC Jim L. Mora]
2005–2010: University of Florida [HC Urban Meyer]
2005–2009: University of Notre Dame [HC Charlie Weis]
2006–2010: University of Michigan [HC Lloyd Carr and Rich Rodriguez]
2006–Present: Green Bay Packers [HC Mike McCarthy]
2006–2013: Houston Texans [HC Gary Kubiak]
2007–2012: University of Oregon [OC Chip Kelly]
2008–2010: Oakland Raiders [HC Tom Cable]
2009–2009: Florida State University [HC Bobby Bowden][4]
2010–2012: Buffalo Bills [HC Chan Gailey]
2010–Present: Seattle Seahawks [HC Pete Carroll]
2010–2014: Washington Redskins [HC Mike Shanahan and OC Kyle Shanahan]
2012: Oakland Raiders [HC Dennis Allen]
2012–Present: University of Arizona [HC Rich Rodriguez]
2012–Present: University of California, Los Angeles [HC Jim L. Mora]
2012–2015: Miami Dolphins [HC Joe Philbin]
2012–Present: Ohio State University [HC Urban Meyer]
2013–Present: Arizona Cardinals [HC Bruce Arians]
2013–Present: Auburn University [HC Gus Malzahn]
2013–Present: Brigham Young University [HC Bronco Mendenhall and OC Robert Anae]
2013–Present: Dallas Cowboys [HC Jason Garrett]
2013–Present: Jacksonville Jaguars [HC Gus Bradley]
2013–Present: University of Oregon [HC Mark Helfrich]
2013–2015: Philadelphia Eagles [HC Chip Kelly]
2013–Present: Pittsburgh Steelers [HC Mike Tomlin]
2014–Present: Baltimore Ravens [HC John Harbaugh
2014–Present: Cleveland Browns [HC Mike Pettine
2014–Present: New Orleans Saints [HC Sean Payton]
2015–Present: Atlanta Falcons [HC Dan Quinn and OC Kyle Shanahan]
2015–Present: Denver Broncos [HC Gary Kubiak]
2016–Present: San Francisco 49ers [HC Chip Kelly]
2016–Present: Miami Dolphins [HC Adam Gase]

 

[EverydayImRusselin]

As I read your list, it doesn't really matter who drafted a starting player, just what round they were drafted and who they are playing for now, correct? For instance, James Carpenter (25th) plays for the Jets but was drafted by Seattle. Max Unger (49th) and Russell Okung (6th) also were picked by the Seahawks but are starting for other teams.

We don't have a talent issue in Seattle and I think your list does a good job of pointing it out. We all know we don't keep linemen past their 4 year contracts for the most part and as we can see by the list of 3 players above, there are plenty of ex-Seahawks that are starting in the NFL.

So if the talent isn't an issue then I would say the zone blocking scheme (ZBS) itself is at fault. The reason it takes so long for a line to gel is that all the permutations take time to develop. It isn't something the players dealt with in college. It isn't always the same for each line front. On Monday's discussion on one of the radio stations, Pete referred to a specific play where the lineman that looked to have missed the block wasn't at fault. The net result that I took from Pete was that the actual scheme isn't really apparent from just looking at the replay even if a free running defender seems to have been running in a gap that Joekel (for example) appeared to be closest to.

The ZBS is just too complicated of a system with the way we are cycling through our linemen. It doesn't give our new players enough time to learn it to be successful and it is too nuanced to pick it up quickly. We either need to change our personnel planning and keep some of our offensive line starters that know ZBS on the roster or we need a new offensive line scheme that our players can pick up quickly as they cycle through our team each year.

In a way I don't necessarily see this as a coaching issue except that it just takes way too long to coach linemen up on the scheme.

Here is a link to an article talking about the ZBS for those that want to know more: https://www.fieldgulls.com/football-bre ... -tom-cable

The issue is you can't keep everyone. Okung, Carpenter, Unger and Sweezy (throw him in too) is a $23m cap hit in 2017(rising significantly over the next few years too). Who would you cut to make that happen?

 

[BullHawk33]

The issue is you can't keep everyone. Okung, Carpenter, Unger and Sweezy (throw him in too) is a $23m cap hit in 2017(rising significantly over the next few years too). Who would you cut to make that happen?

If your system is inherently difficult on new linemen and it takes time to be successful then either you just ride the lightning (like we have) and hope for the best from the o line or you have to change to a blocking scheme that allows you to be more successful earlier because of all the turnover.

I'm not saying we had to keep them, although that is one option. I'm saying if you expect to cycle through people often, like we have, you had better have a plan to allow them to succeed early, which is not what we have seen from this system.

 

[BullHawk33]

....So if the talent isn't an issue then I would say the zone blocking scheme (ZBS) itself is at fault. The reason it takes so long for a line to gel is that all the permutations take time to develop. It isn't something the players dealt with in college.

I used to think that myself. I've moved on from that after looking further into this. It is clearly more coaching than scheme, at least here it is.
Here is a list of teams using the ZBS.....

Teams that relied on a zone blocking scheme

1959–1967: Green Bay Packers [HC Vince Lombardi][3]
1984–1991: Cincinnati Bengals [HC Sam Wyche]
1995–2009: Denver Broncos [HC Mike Shanahan and Josh McDaniels (kept scheme in first year)]
1999–Present: University of Iowa [HC Kirk Ferentz]
2001–2007: West Virginia University [HC Rich Rodriguez]
2001–2008: Bowling Green State University [HC Urban Meyer and Gregg Brandon]
2002–2006: University of Minnesota [HC Glen Mason]
2003–2004: University of Utah [HC Urban Meyer]
2004–2006: Atlanta Falcons [HC Jim L. Mora]
2005–2010: University of Florida [HC Urban Meyer]
2005–2009: University of Notre Dame [HC Charlie Weis]
2006–2010: University of Michigan [HC Lloyd Carr and Rich Rodriguez]
2006–Present: Green Bay Packers [HC Mike McCarthy]
2006–2013: Houston Texans [HC Gary Kubiak]
2007–2012: University of Oregon [OC Chip Kelly]
2008–2010: Oakland Raiders [HC Tom Cable]
2009–2009: Florida State University [HC Bobby Bowden][4]
2010–2012: Buffalo Bills [HC Chan Gailey]
2010–Present: Seattle Seahawks [HC Pete Carroll]
2010–2014: Washington Redskins [HC Mike Shanahan and OC Kyle Shanahan]
2012: Oakland Raiders [HC Dennis Allen]
2012–Present: University of Arizona [HC Rich Rodriguez]
2012–Present: University of California, Los Angeles [HC Jim L. Mora]
2012–2015: Miami Dolphins [HC Joe Philbin]
2012–Present: Ohio State University [HC Urban Meyer]
2013–Present: Arizona Cardinals [HC Bruce Arians]
2013–Present: Auburn University [HC Gus Malzahn]
2013–Present: Brigham Young University [HC Bronco Mendenhall and OC Robert Anae]
2013–Present: Dallas Cowboys [HC Jason Garrett]
2013–Present: Jacksonville Jaguars [HC Gus Bradley]
2013–Present: University of Oregon [HC Mark Helfrich]
2013–2015: Philadelphia Eagles [HC Chip Kelly]
2013–Present: Pittsburgh Steelers [HC Mike Tomlin]
2014–Present: Baltimore Ravens [HC John Harbaugh
2014–Present: Cleveland Browns [HC Mike Pettine
2014–Present: New Orleans Saints [HC Sean Payton]
2015–Present: Atlanta Falcons [HC Dan Quinn and OC Kyle Shanahan]
2015–Present: Denver Broncos [HC Gary Kubiak]
2016–Present: San Francisco 49ers [HC Chip Kelly]
2016–Present: Miami Dolphins [HC Adam Gase]

Since we tend to draft and not sign experienced linemen it really starts with college. Such a small number of schools even teach linemen well and the list of colleges with ZBS is incredibly small. Such a small number of those schools provide talent each year to the draft. It is just a numbers game and the players that go to the NFL just don't know the ZBS.

Our talent philosophy requires us to cycle through o linemen each year. We lean on them earlier and have to bring them up to speed faster. My theory is that the scheme is too complicated to make that happen successfully with new people each year. The o line starts performing better 4 or 5 weeks into the season each year. That is no accident as it just takes them time to get through all the learning needed. Coaching is definitely a function of performance but the scheme continues to fail until all 5 players learn and execute properly.

Patriots had a crap line protect Brady and it worked. That happened because of a coaching change but mostly because of how the different scheme that supported the talent they had was applied. They worked with what they had and we should do that too. The scheme simply doesn't support the talent.

 

[MontanaHawk05]

Patriots had a crap line protect Brady and it worked.

Hoooo boy

Now you're REALLY stepping on some people's sacred-cow beliefs about the importance of the OL.

Next we'll hear lunacies like how Peyton Manning's line was proven to be bad once he left the Colts, or how Aaron Rodgers has actually been one of the league's most sacked QB's over the years, or how David Carr's sack rate followed him to other teams once he left Houston while Matt Schaub immediately improved things...

Oh wait...those are all true... :?: :?: :?: