Are we concerned about Okung?

He left with an injury, which turned out to be a shoulder? But even before then he's been getting beat all year. I expected Britt to struggle as this is his first year. But Okung has been getting blown by, whats the deal?

The deal is he's not great, commits too many penalties, and is injury prone.

But we'll probably pay him anyways because even a mediocre LT is hard to find.

He's not a FA until 2016, however he will need to become less penalty and injury prone to be even considered for a big contract then as so far to me at least he's not been worth the $ paid him as the 6th OA pick in 2010.

I'm not worried about his performance. We know he's got talent to be a good LT.

I was very worried when I saw him on the turf Sunday. "Oh no, here we go again...and we already used our IR to Return on Lane" was all I kept thinking.

Even though we are critical of him, he is highly regarded around the league. Even the commentators were saying he is one of the best LTs in the NFL.

We were kind of spoiled with Walter Jones. Okung is a pretty good LT when he is healthy.

The false starts are annoying

Hawknballs":1dg69uy9 said:

The deal is he's not great, commits too many penalties, and is injury prone.

But we'll probably pay him anyways because even a mediocre LT is hard to find.

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Yep, and yep.

What bothers me about Okung's penalties is that most of them are stupid false start penalties. That's just lack of focus type crap that SHOULD be correctable, but he keeps doing it.

Only if you have tape worms or a mouse in your pocket

I think his performance so far has improved as he's gotten into game shape though he isn't where he was his last healthy season (year before last?). Remember that he didn't play much at all in the preseason (surgery, right?) and game shape is a whole different thing for a football player than just being in shape. The shoulder concerns me, though obviously the timing of the bye will help with the recovery process. And like many of you, I also feel he's been injured more than you'd like to see the last couple of years

I know it's probably too early to ask this, but if he isn't re-signed does anyone think Britt will be moved over there as a replacement? I think we've all seen that Pete & John are always thinking 2-3 years in advance to keep the team competitive so I wonder if Britt was drafted with an eventual move to LT in mind?

hawksfansinceday1":sswqwvxr said:

I know it's probably too early to ask this, but if he isn't re-signed does anyone think Britt will be moved over there as a replacement? I think we've all seen that Pete & John are always thinking 2-3 years in advance to keep the team competitive so I wonder if Britt was drafted with an eventual move to LT in mind?

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I think John and Pete have it in their long range cap plans to resign Okung.

I guess that's the good part about resigning a first round tackle, he's already making 8M a year, so it's not going to eat up much cap giving him a 3-4 year deal at the same or a little more.

I think Joe Thomas is the highest paid tackle at like 10M, so I'd expect Okung to be less than that.

gowazzu02":2oikghfg said:

He left with an injury, which turned out to be a shoulder? But even before then he's been getting beat all year. I expected Britt to struggle as this is his first year. But Okung has been getting blown by, whats the deal?

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1. He is coming back from surgery.
2. All year? You mean three games, right?

Hawknballs":tb0ftfyq said:

The deal is he's not great, commits too many penalties, and is injury prone.

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I agree that he hasn't played great but I think your first two points are mostly related to the third one. We have seen him play well in the past against good competition when he has been healthy; he just isn't at 100% health very often.

What's interesting to me is that the coaches seem to think that Okung at 80% is better than Bailey at 100%. I thought that Bailey has looked better than expected from what we have seen. Maybe the coaches see it differently or Bailey doesn't come off very well in practice? Whether we pay Okung or not, backup LT will be an important position for us so I am sort of confused that we haven't played Bailey more with Okung hurt.

I started a thread about him last week. I said I thought he was a C+ if we were grading.

He has had some nice work so far. Football is friggin tough and we are hard on players, but I think the lofty draft pick has not been realized with him.

Face it. We got spoiled with Walter, and the fact is, there is ONLY 1 Walter Jones.

I'm concerned about the amount of threads that are about being concerned about something :th2thumbs:

I'm ready to move on to a mediocre LT who stays healthy.

Even though I am a big Okung fan and wanted him so badly in the draft, I'm pretty down on him now. He has not played well this season so far. Yes, he probably is not fully healthy yet, I know. Is full health a state that ever exists for Okung, even in the bigger picture of what that means to an NFL player? There are a number of LTs I would trade him for in a heartbeat if I could.

Before he got his pec torn in 2011, I was convinced he was the next great LT. He was mauling people and seemed so athletic. He has never looked that way since he got back from that injury, and he's racked up a bunch of other ones. Someone (maybe Kearly) compared him to Tatupu as a talented player whose career is getting cut short by injuries, and that seems spot on. He is not a guy I would give a huge second contract to ideally, but I know LTs dont grow on trees. Hopefully he will turn it around because I do like the guy.

One of the ways I look at it is similar to baseball. Replacement value. He has been so far this year and the last two average. If you figure into his injury history he is really into the below replacement level. I'd at this point consider another FE, draft or give Bailey a shot. He is at 8 mil a year I believe and they money could perhaps be spent elsewhere.

He needs to up his game, knock off the every game penalties, and develop some durability.

It's now time for Okung.

Sgt. Largent":6bcky6c0 said:

hawksfansinceday1":6bcky6c0 said:

I know it's probably too early to ask this, but if he isn't re-signed does anyone think Britt will be moved over there as a replacement? I think we've all seen that Pete & John are always thinking 2-3 years in advance to keep the team competitive so I wonder if Britt was drafted with an eventual move to LT in mind?

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I think John and Pete have it in their long range cap plans to resign Okung.

I guess that's the good part about resigning a first round tackle, he's already making 8M a year, so it's not going to eat up much cap giving him a 3-4 year deal at the same or a little more.

I think Joe Thomas is the highest paid tackle at like 10M, so I'd expect Okung to be less than that.

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He hasn't even earned the 8 mil/year IMO. Problem is, as injury prone as he's been, we have to invest a little more to keep a quality backup, which we will inevitably need.

Hawks46":2uzzcehq said:

Sgt. Largent":2uzzcehq said:

hawksfansinceday1":2uzzcehq said:

I know it's probably too early to ask this, but if he isn't re-signed does anyone think Britt will be moved over there as a replacement? I think we've all seen that Pete & John are always thinking 2-3 years in advance to keep the team competitive so I wonder if Britt was drafted with an eventual move to LT in mind?

Click to expand...

I think John and Pete have it in their long range cap plans to resign Okung.

I guess that's the good part about resigning a first round tackle, he's already making 8M a year, so it's not going to eat up much cap giving him a 3-4 year deal at the same or a little more.

I think Joe Thomas is the highest paid tackle at like 10M, so I'd expect Okung to be less than that.

Click to expand...

He hasn't even earned the 8 mil/year IMO. Problem is, as injury prone as he's been, we have to invest a little more to keep a quality backup, which we will inevitably need.

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Our backup OTs are two undrafted free agents in their first and second years in the league. Their combined salary is less than a million dollars per year over the next two years.

I think what Hawks46 was getting at is that the cost of a second contract with Okung will also have to include the cost of keeping better tackle depth on the bench going forwards. That's not a deal breaker but it will definitely lower how much we are willing to offer him. One wrinkle is that I expect expanding roster sizes to gain traction in the next year or two and durability will have less of a premium if the rules change.