OL questions?

[Capital Card]

I realize that Monday following a loss probably isn't the best time to ask these, but perhaps someone can answer these somewhat calmly and rationally.

1. With Step getting tossed around like a rag doll yesterday, why didn't we have someone helping him out? By the second drive in the first quarter, I thought it obvious that he couldn't handle Grady Jackson, yet I don't recall seeing us double Grady much during the game.

2. Achilles heel of the O-line is our inablility to handle the delayed blitz. Heck, we've been dredful with any type of blitz, but delayed blitzers seem to be able to run untouched at our QB. I don't recall us picking it up once this entire season. Are we sending too many people downfield in an attempt to be a "high-flying" offense. Why are we so bad at this?

3. LD. Bad game. I'm one of his biggest supporters in here, but I was dissapointed in what I saw yesterday. Will LD do better with a Lefty QB like Matt at QB in that he should no longer have to face oposing teams best DE pass rusher, or will teams continue to put their best blitzer against LD knowing that he doesn't have the speed to keep up with them?

 

[Pariah]

Will LD do better with a Lefty QB like Matt at QB in that he should no longer have to face oposing teams best DE pass rusher, or will teams continue to put their best blitzer against LD knowing that he doesn't have the speed to keep up with them?

Ack!

Teams don't change their RDE and LDE for lefties. They just don't.

 

[JeffGollin]

It will never happen, but what I'd love to see is (1) a play by play breakdown of each offensive linemen's assignment on every offensive play thus far during the season and (2) how well he executed each assignment.

And at the end of each breakdown of each lineman's performance on every play, there should be a recommendation as to what if anything he'd need to do to execute his assignment satisfactorily.

I assume that the coaching staff already does this (could it conceivably be that part of the problem is that they actually don't)? At the very least - at least from a fan's standpoint - we'd be able to see for ourselves where (a) the problems lay with each lineman and (b) how much progress (if any) each guy is making.

If there was one priority on this football team, it should be to look under the hood to figure out why we can't block to save our lives and then to get the freakin' problem solved. Our problems all start right here.

 

[blindseyed]

We have an O-Line???

 

[bigredjane]

Why??

Don't they move Davis back to guard which seems to be his natural position?? Who could they put at tackle instead?

 

[General Chaos]

The sad thing is this isnt a problem that can instantly be solved in the offseason. Look at Minnesota, they sign Hutchinson and their Oline has been average at best. Chester Taylor is playing like edge just fighting to get any yards. We will just have to hope that this unit improves with time, b/c no FA will come in and dominate.

 

[B-Dogg]

This is rediculous this O-Line is god awful if not the worst in the NFL bottom three make some changes that need to be made. Move Big to left guard he could dominate there at LT he is going to be average, move Wells to center Step is not cutting... These may not solve all the problems but they sure as hell wouldnt be any worse... at this point they need to do something our running backs and QB's are going to get killed...

 

[conraddobler]

It will never happen, but what I'd love to see is (1) a play by play breakdown of each offensive linemen's assignment on every offensive play thus far during the season and (2) how well he executed each assignment.

And at the end of each breakdown of each lineman's performance on every play, there should be a recommendation as to what if anything he'd need to do to execute his assignment satisfactorily.

I assume that the coaching staff already does this (could it conceivably be that part of the problem is that they actually don't)? At the very least - at least from a fan's standpoint - we'd be able to see for ourselves where (a) the problems lay with each lineman and (b) how much progress (if any) each guy is making.

If there was one priority on this football team, it should be to look under the hood to figure out why we can't block to save our lives and then to get the freakin' problem solved. Our problems all start right here.

I'll give it a stab, first of all watching the game film all of our linemen get beat and the striking thing is that it's almost like an equal opportunity affair.

You really can only point to one lineman that consistently struggles and that's Step, the others are pretty even in being the cause of the destruction.

What that tells me is that it's almost totally about them being new to starting together and it could also have some line call problems in there.

They are terrible at picking up a delayed blitz and they almost never get much of a run blocking push, they are awesome at creating an impenetrable pile, it's a function of not working together.

So in effect you need a better center, better line calls and everyone needs to learn what each others role is and do their job.

My belief is if they did all this they'd plateu at average which would be more than enough, as of now they have to climb hard to get to awful.

 

[CardinalChris]

The more I watched, the more it simply is a line that has NO idea who they should be blocking. This happens when you have No confidence in who the man next to you is blocking.

Perfect case, Wells had Jackson lined up over his right shoulder. When the ball was snapped Wells went to his left, expecting Big to take a potential outside rusher. instead Big took on Kerney, so There is Davis blocking and Wells watching it until he realizes Jackson is sprinting towards Matt.

For the amount of money these guys are being paid, stick them together, for better or worse. Then when continuity is no longer an issue, the only true defense for poor play is they really do stink. You know who to keep and who to get rid of.

 

[conraddobler]

The more I watched, the more it simply is a line that has NO idea who they should be blocking. This happens when you have No confidence in who the man next to you is blocking.

Perfect case, Wells had Jackson lined up over his right shoulder. When the ball was snapped Wells went to his left, expecting Big to take a potential outside rusher. instead Big took on Kerney, so There is Davis blocking and Wells watching it until he realizes Jackson is sprinting towards Matt.

For the amount of money these guys are being paid, stick them together, for better or worse. Then when continuity is no longer an issue, the only true defense for poor play is they really do stink. You know who to keep and who to get rid of.

Looks like we said about the same thing.

I thought of another factor that explains why they could look better one game and awful the next.

Experience together, to me it seems that each team they face may be closer or farther away from schemes of Defense they are familiar with.

It'd explain why one game the protection holds better and another game they act like idiots.

I'd say we just have to let them have the rest of the season together and look at the last 4 games vs the 1st 4 and see if they got better or worse.

 

[Russ Smith]

Looks like we said about the same thing.

I thought of another factor that explains why they could look better one game and awful the next.

Experience together, to me it seems that each team they face may be closer or farther away from schemes of Defense they are familiar with.

It'd explain why one game the protection holds better and another game they act like idiots.

I'd say we just have to let them have the rest of the season together and look at the last 4 games vs the 1st 4 and see if they got better or worse.

I also think there's the element that they didn't expect Atlanta to blitz that much because they didn't in their first 3 games. I don't think they've yet figured out that it's not a coincidence everyone is blitzing us. And that will continue with Matt back there since he's a rookie, basically they don't believe our OL can handle it so they keep coming until we do.

You could hear it at halftime everyone on radio that clearly has access to the staff and some practice stuff was surprised at how much Atlanta was blitzing. It was as if the staff was thinking oh well at least we won't see that this week?

 

[jefftheshark]

You could hear it at halftime everyone on radio that clearly has access to the staff and some practice stuff was surprised at how much Atlanta was blitzing. It was as if the staff was thinking oh well at least we won't see that this week?

If true, then they are idiots, because every team we have faced has successfully blitzed the hell out of us. We will see the same thing this week against KC until we show that we can pick it up.




The Shark

 

[NMCard]

You could hear it at halftime everyone on radio that clearly has access to the staff and some practice stuff was surprised at how much Atlanta was blitzing. It was as if the staff was thinking oh well at least we won't see that this week?

I think teams know what works when playing the Cards. I would expect all teams to take advantage of the Cards very slow and weak o-line with blitz packages. It wins football games. It's up to the Cards to come up with a plan to counter that.

 

[conraddobler]

If true, then they are idiots, because every team we have faced has successfully blitzed the hell out of us. We will see the same thing this week against KC until we show that we can pick it up.




The Shark

Warner to be fair didn't hit the hot routes he could have, partly because he's too short and was in a pile of humanity.

The only way we get this monkey off our back is to fight our way through it by punishing the other team for doing it.

We lack the ultimate way to punish them and that's scorching them with a burner but both Fitz and Boldin can still help a lot by getting some YAC on hot routes.

I think we'll struggle with it, it's almost like a new QB and new line will have to grow up together but I guess they might as well get that over right away, it's a right of passage for any new NFL QB, too bad he's got this line to deal with also, ouch, now I don't feel quite as envious of his $, well still I do but it helps a little.

 

[jefftheshark]

I think we'll struggle with it, it's almost like a new QB and new line will have to grow up together but I guess they might as well get that over right away, it's a right of passage for any new NFL QB, too bad he's got this line to deal with also, ouch, now I don't feel quite as envious of his $, well still I do but it helps a little.

One of the first things out of Leinart's mouth was that the o-line was "fine". I think he knows the importance of having their backs, because they need to return the favor.

The Shark

 

[CardinalChris]

If true, then they are idiots, because every team we have faced has successfully blitzed the hell out of us. We will see the same thing this week against KC until we show that we can pick it up.

And every team will because we can't stop it. They will blitz until we prove we can block.

 

[SoCal Cardfan]

Don't they move Davis back to guard which seems to be his natural position?? Who could they put at tackle instead?

I am shocked this question has never been posed before!

 

[Duckjake]

Don't they move Davis back to guard which seems to be his natural position?? Who could they put at tackle instead?

Right now they simply don't have any one to put at tackle. They've tried Wakefield and Ross at LT and half the Olinemen in the country at RT over the past two years and nothing has worked.