I've bemoaned Massie's play as much as anyone. Even during the first couple games when he played "well" I was pointing out his beatdowns. But I think it's unfair to actually judge his future based on this year--and not just because he's a rookie, although that's part of it. Line play is generally based as a whole unit, rather than 1 guy individually (exceptions are made at LT when the dude is on an island). Massie doesn't get the help he would normally get as a starting rookie. If he were the only problem they'd have guys sliding to help (most likely to his inside left, or if a TE is helping Massie would leverage inside and rely on the TE help outside). But since our whole line sucks the help isn't there. Depending on Snyder to slide and provide help is a joke. Even Massie must know it isn't coming.
We've seen all year guys not sliding to provide the help--that's why we've all seen plays where 3 guys get to the QB and we have 2 or 3 offensive lineman just standing there; literally just standing, not even engaged in a block. That's what happens when you don't slide to pick up your blockers, you end up not engaged with anyone and your QB gets destroyed.
This oline is so gawdawful putrid bad that I blame Massie the least out of everyone. Guys are not only mismatched at the point of attack, in strength, and technique, but mismatched picking up stunts when they're supposed to slide over. The delayed stunt really owns this group because they immediately slide to help a dude who doesn't need it and allow the linebacker to come on a delayed blitz and eat our QB. Anything semi-exotic like stunts, loops and delayed blitzes own our line.
Snyder is the reason for the collapse on the right side. He probably needs more help than Massie and there just aren't enough players to help them both, we'd need like 14 men on the field. And Batiste is so bad that it's hard to bring help because he can be beat on any move. It's not like he has one weakness where his guy always beats him wide or inside, no. Batiste gets beat on a variety of moves including bull-rushes, swims to the outside, inside shoulder cuts, you name it. The only move I haven't seen him beat on is a 360 ala Freeney and that's only because defenders know they don't need to waste half a second on a 360 to beat him.
Massie is probably the best of this group IMO. We have 3 guys on the line needing help: Massie, Snyder, Batiste. Those are the chronic areas. There isn't enough help to bring when all of them can be beat on any one move. You can bring a TE to help Massie, a RB to pick up Snyder's man after he gets destroyed, and what exactly for Batiste? Can't bring another TE over because he'll just get beat inside--same thing with bringing another RB to chip. Problem with Batiste is you don't even know where to bring the help because he gets beat in a plethora of ways. And even if we do all that, with 2 TE's and 2 RB's that gives our QB maybe a whole extra 1 second at best than he otherwise would have had, and we only have 2 WR's in routes at that point. And that's against a simple base package of 4 rushers!
It's a no-win with this line and in my opinion we're stuck with it all year because there's no way to fix it other than to replace them.
