O-Line

[AgentDib]

The current pandemic may result in cancellation of rookie mini-camp, and cancellation or limitation of other preseason team activities; this is not a year to rely on rookie o-linemen.

To add onto your point, even if things go forward on schedule the new CBA reduces padded practices even further. Excerpts from Articles 23 and 24:
* No more than 16 days of padded practices in preseason (2.5 hrs/day)
* No more than 14 total padded practices during entire regular season (3 hrs/day)

That is a maximum of 40 hours of padded practice for any rookie OL prior to the season beginning and only 42 more hours of padded practice total over the entire season. Most of them will have never played in an offense with the QB under center and certainly not against NFL caliber defensive linemen. I predict a lot of impatient fans who can't figure out why the rookie OL/DL are taking a while to get up to NFL speed.

I do think this is a strong draft for OL and we should draft a few. However, I hope that fans are willing to see them as future projects to take over positions down the road once they develop. If we draft a guy who is ready to start this season then that's great, but it shouldn't be the expectation given our draft slot.

 

[Largent80]

I do think this is a strong draft for OL and we should draft a few. However, I hope that fans are willing to see them as future projects to take over positions down the road once they develop. If we draft a guy who is ready to start this season then that's great, but it shouldn't be the expectation given our draft slot.

I commented about this in another post. I thought that these signings signaled they will draft for the future and take advantage of the great draft for OL....Then as the Clowney situation lumbers on, my thought process was, they have targeted DE in the draft (Zuniga?)........But they now have a large group of OL with NFL exp. (albeit not stellar)....So I'm thinking they may have the view that these guys can hold down the fort while the rookie(s) develope.