When talking Hawks OL it's critical to understand that they view themselves as a developmental coaching staff and see the main issue last season as a lack of experience. You may disagree, but the Hawks are basing their strategy on their own analysis.
They were expecting continued improvement at C and OT from Fant, Ifedi, and Britt in their second seasons of OL experience, NFL experience, and OC experience respectively. They went after veteran OG in FA and ended up with Joeckel and Aboushi. Fant-Joeckel-Britt-Aboushi-Ifedi in 2017 would have been a
vastly more experienced line than any of our combinations in 2016.
A vocal minority of fans clamored for us to draft another 5 OL and start them all as rookies, but the majority understood that we were going to be hesitant about slotting any OL rookies into starting positions given the FO's concern about inexperience as Fant and Ifedi were still developing projects at OT.
Pocic was drafted to compete and eventually win a starting role, and they do like his developmental upside at four positions. However, we've played five games so far in his rookie campaign and you shouldn't be surprised that they are taking things slow with him, Roos and Battle - who have 5 combined NFL games between them. RG is probably Pocic's best chance of starting later this season but that depends a lot on Ifedi's progress, who according to many has been playing markedly better with the veteran Aboushi lining up next to him. It also depressingly depends on injury outcomes, as there's a high chance that one of our current starters will go down with 11 regular season games still to play.
mikeak":3utzjb80 said:
Having as bad of a o-line as we did last year then cutting a guy that then goes and plays well for the Saints tells me they are missing the evaluation process
When they say they went too young last year that's one of the things they are talking about. Making room for one of their cheap young draft picks over an old expensive guy with injury problems is understandable on it's own, but decisions like that led to ending up with five OL starters with minimal NFL experience at their current position and that was a mistake in aggregate. That's exactly what they are trying to avoid this season by not immediately slotting Pocic in as a starter and letting him learn on the job.