The O lines left in the playoffs.

Based on some of the ideas I have seen thrown around here over the past few days it looks like the Seahawks need to trade Sherman and Bennett for 1st rounders and use those picks on Olinemen. So let us check out the last O lines left in the NFL Playoffs.

Packers

LT 4th rounder
LG UDFA
C 5th
RG 4th
RT 1st

Falcons

LT 1st (Top ten pick)
LG Trade
C FA
RG FA (3rd team 11 years)
RT UDFA

Steelers

LT Futures contract
LG UDFA
C 1st
RG 1st
RT 2nd

Patriots

LT 1st
LG 3rd
C UDFA
RG 4th
RT 5th


One thing you can see from above is team MAXIMIZE mid-round offensive linemen. The Seahawks have a draft strategy that is in line with the best teams in the league. In fact, they draft more like the Steelers with 2 1st rounders and one 2nd rounder spent on offensive linemen. Unfortunately, we have to come to only two conclusions Schneider for whatever reason can't identify offensive line talent, yet still, has the ability to draft all pro players in other positions late in the draft OR the team has some serious coaching deficiencies along the offensive line.

At this point, I would take John Schneider with 31 other offensive line coaches vs Tom Cable and 31 other GM's.

Nice work! Pretty much blows up all that "but we don't have a top 10 pick" to restock solid olinemen senseless chatter. We have poured plenty of resource into our oline over the Cable era. Tastes like crap because the cook and his chosen ingredients flat out suck.

Seymour":1z3m0v8g said:

Nice work! Pretty much blows up all that "but we don't have a top 10 pick" to restock solid olinemen senseless chatter. We have poured plenty of resource into our oline over the Cable era. Tastes like crap because the cook and his chosen ingredients flat out suck.

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Thank you.


Look at the Steelers they the whole left side of the line is playing for peanuts. Yet the whole right side is 1st and 2nd rounders. People wanted to talk about the Cowboys but you know what I bet the Cowboys would have traded one of those 1st round picks for a pass rusher on Sunday. It's a numbers game, you can get very good linemen late in drafts. There are 252 teams that play D1 and D2 college football, every team has to start 5 linemen every play no matter what. That means at a minimum there are 1260 linemen available for the NFL to draft. Last year there was 253 total draft slections, so the numbers are on the side of teams that pick linemen late.

Can you check how many tight ends and power forwards these teams have on their o-lines?

Falcons

LT 1st (Top ten pick)
LG Trade (former 2nd rounder)
C FA (former 1st rounder)
RG FA (3rd team 11 years - former 2nd rounder)
RT UDFA

Fixed that for you. C Alex Mack was without question our biggest FA signing.

Cable is highly responsible for this along with pete. They actually a had a pretty good line the last time they went to the SB. Problem is they let all the best guys go thinking they would really get away with their makeshift experiments.

FalconsFanNW":12cyu36r said:

Falcons

LT 1st (Top ten pick)
LG Trade (former 2nd rounder)
C FA (former 1st rounder)
RG FA (3rd team 11 years - former 2nd rounder)
RT UDFA

Fixed that for you. C Alex Mack was without question our biggest FA signing.

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Yup alex mack is easily a top 3 center in the whole league. Falcons finally making some serious noise after they made a point to address o line in FA. Wish the seahawks would do this.

anonFAFA":3oamkap3 said:

Can you check how many tight ends and power forwards these teams have on their o-lines?

Click to expand...

No basketball players.

However, the Steelers LT did play TE at Army for two seasons before switching to LT for the final two seasons.

Continuity makes a line more than anything. The Seahawks have had none. Next season hopefully that changes.

2005 Seahawks
LT: 1st rd
LG: 1st rd
C: Undrafted
RG: 5th rd
RT: 3rd rd

So I agree with continuity but I think we still need at least 1 unquestioned top shelf talent preferable at OT. Even the 2013 Seahawks had two first rounders on their Oline.

seahawkfreak":2zsssqg8 said:

2005 Seahawks
LT: 1st rd
LG: 1st rd
C: Undrafted
RG: 5th rd
RT: 3rd rd

So I agree with continuity but I think we still need at least 1 unquestioned top shelf talent preferable at OT. Even the 2013 Seahawks had two first rounders on their Oline.

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Agreed, notably look to the improvement in Atlanta with Alex Mack this season. If there was still that chance to get Joe Thomas, the team should reconsider it.

seahawkfreak":2xljdl7j said:

2005 Seahawks
LT: 1st rd
LG: 1st rd
C: Undrafted
RG: 5th rd
RT: 3rd rd

So I agree with continuity but I think we still need at least 1 unquestioned top shelf talent preferable at OT. Even the 2013 Seahawks had two first rounders on their Oline.

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Also the years between first rounders on the Oline will help too.

Walt was drafted in 1997 and Hutch was drafted in 2001.

Look at the current Steelers build in a very similar fashion.

Pouncey 2010
DeCastro 2012

Cowboys went

2011 2013 2014 2015

La'el Collins was a UDFA but the Cowboys gave him a 21 million dollar signing bonus because his agent said they would sit out the 2015 season and come back for the 2016 NFL Draft.

So they spent WAAAAAY to much first round draft capital on that line. Like I was saying I bet on Sunday they wish they had a first round pass rusher or cover guy on Sunday.

Our current line is this:

LT - UDFA
LG - 4th
C - 2nd
RG - 1st
RT - UDFA

Plenty has been invested in the interior and that showed at times, my opinion is that we have to keep the continuity there at the very least. Even if most here despise Ifedi currently, I see him improving massively next year. There's a reason he was taken in the first round after all.

Problem is on the outside. Two UDFA tackles doesn't look very promising to begin with. Given our track record with turning UDFAs into legitimate stars one more UDFA on the line shouldn't immediately make our line horrible but Gilliam and Fant weren't just overlooked prospects or guys that just came short of being drafted. They have a major lack of experience. Gilliam was a career TE who only eventually played one season at OT in college, while Fant only played a couple of snaps of football in his entire college career with none of them coming at OT.

Compare this level of experience to the other teams' UDFAs now.

David Andrews, C, NE - played Center in HS and college, making heads turn his way by solid play. He was the number 9 center coming out of high school. Was named 2nd team All-SEC in his senior season in college and was a finalist for the Rimington Trophy (best center).

Lane Taylor, LG, GB - offensive lineman throughout college, made first team All-Big 12.

Ryan Schraeder, RT, ATL - only started playing football in college but made DII first team All-american every year of his college career.

Alejandro Villanueva, LT, PIT - played lots of different positions but still had around 2 years of experience at LT in the college ranks.

Ramon Foster, LG, PIT - played 44 games at the collegiate level as an O-lineman earning minor variants of All-SEC honors in 2005 and 2007. Has also been in the NFL for 8 years now.


4/5 were decorated Offensive linemen in college and the one that wasn't still has more experience than Fant and Gilliam combined. These numbers are seriously concerning. It should be a top priority to add guys with multiple years of O-line (and preferably OT) experience, whether it are FAs, draft picks or UDFAs. I know this isn't a guarantee for success. Poole was a miss, Odhiambo looks like a miss, Sowell was actually beaten out by Gilliam and Fant after the Hawks gave him all the chances in the world. Something has to be done though and I really hope the FO is able to land at least 1 solid tackle somehow, somewhere.

Very true. Yesterday Ray Roberts was on 710 talking about how Fant has no clue on how to play the position. Some of the most basic Oline techniques are completely foreign to him. He can't cut block to save his life, he keeps his hands low like a baskeball player which also tends to draw holding penalties. He did not understand the clipping rule the first few weeks he played.

Lets look at last season. Cable for what ever reason starts Drew Nowak over Lewis the first few weeks of the season and the Oline looks like a dumpster fire. They cut Nowak and put Lewis back in and the team goes on a offensive explosion to end the season. To me that was the day Cable should have been fired, how could anyone on the team look at that night and day transformation on the online and think that Cable was anything but incompetent.

I agree you don't need first round talent on the line to win. but at least draft actual lineman in the later rounds. don't draft a tight end, a defensive tackle, and a basketball player to play line. draft an actual lineman.

RussB":2vf18y5f said:

Cable is highly responsible for this along with pete. They actually a had a pretty good line the last time they went to the SB. Problem is they let all the best guys go thinking they would really get away with their makeshift experiments.

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Our championship season we had the top paid oline in the NFL. This year the lowest. Cable even with that kind of firepower still only had the 24th best pass blocking line. Cable and the ZBS are the problem. Cable is now stuck here because Pete cannot fire the guy after he spent his player $$ elsewhere (then blame him by firing him) All we can hope for is Pete and Cable evolve back to a power blocking scheme. If we don't? More of the same IMO.

Excellent OP.

A little additional info (ranked by most to least expensive)

Total dollars spent on all listed O-line players

Pittsburgh 2nd, $39,711,507, 27.55% of cap, 8 players, 1 Rookie, no Rookie Starters, 3 on first contract
Green Bay 7th, $32,291,494, 22.61% of cap, 9 players, 2 Rookies, no Rookie Starters, 6 on first contract
Atlanta 15th, $26,783,972, 18.33% of cap, 8 players, 1 Rookie, no Rookie Starters, 5 on first contract
New England 20th, $24,952,784, 16.73% of cap, 8 players, 2 Rookies, 1 Rookie Starter 6 on 1st contract
Dallas 21st, $24,104,610, 15.03% of cap, 8 players, 1 Rookie, no Rookie Starters, 6 on 1st contract
Seattle 31st, $9,677,793, 6.81% of cap, 8 players, 4 Rookies, 2 Rookie starters, 7 on 1st contract


In terms of total dollars spent on just starters

Atlanta 2nd, $24,316,591, 16.69% of cap, No rookies, 2 on first contract
Pittsburgh 4th, $22,831,166, 15.84% of cap, No rookies, 1 on first contract
Green Bay 7th, $17,010,967, 11.91% of cap, No Rookies, 3 on first contract
New England 9th, $16,886,072, 11.32% of cap, 1 Rookie, 3 on first contract
Dallas 25th, $9,562,425, 5.96% of cap, No Rookies, 3 on first contract
Seattle 32nd, $4,024,546, 2.83%, 2 Rookies, 5 on first contract

This may be partially incorrect because I didn't account for any players currently on IR which would have a profound impact.

We all kvetch and moan about the Oline and yet seemingly forget that each of them was essentially a rookie at their respective positions. Hopefully the truth of the greatest improvement a player can have is 1st to 2nd year at their positions will be the case with the OLine because they were not very good all season. To me they were the weakest OLine in the divisional round of the playoffs.

In fact they were absolutely awful at times and wildly inconsistent all season but had a few moments where you had reason to hope they were improving. The OLine woes were the reason however why the O could not do the things they wanted to do. It's very arguable however that the coaches didn't adjust well to limitations of a very inexperienced OLine.

What I found most troublesome was their inability to reliably run block with any consistency game to game.

I'm sure the team will add to the pile but doubt they will add many experienced and more expensive players.

sdog1981":cit92ly6 said:

anonFAFA":cit92ly6 said:

Can you check how many tight ends and power forwards these teams have on their o-lines?

Click to expand...

No basketball players.

However, the Steelers LT did play TE at Army for two seasons before switching to LT for the final two seasons.

Click to expand...

Jason Peters played TE and converted to LT in the NFL. Conversions can work, just not 2 and 3 at a time.

jammerhawk":32ceauw2 said:

We all kvetch and moan about the Oline and yet seemingly forget that each of them was essentially a rookie at their respective positions. Hopefully the truth of the greatest improvement a player can have is 1st to 2nd year at their positions will be the case with the OLine because they were not very good all season. To me they were the weakest OLine in the divisional round of the playoffs.

In fact they were absolutely awful at times and wildly inconsistent all season but had a few moments where you had reason to hope they were improving. The OLine woes were the reason however why the O could not do the things they wanted to do. It's very arguable however that the coaches didn't adjust well to limitations of a very inexperienced OLine.

What I found most troublesome was their inability to reliably run block with any consistency game to game.

I'm sure the team will add to the pile but doubt they will add many experienced and more expensive players.

Click to expand...

Completely agree.