OL depth is one of our biggest concerns, I'm praying we can avoid injury here.
Broke, if you listened to the press conference you would see that Rick clearly said that he's not comfortable enough in having direct substitutes in position by position (Kai-leon for KC for example) and instead would probably kick Trevor Darling to tackle and figure it out. So there is a ways to go on the second line.
You're not wrong to highlight that our second team OL is leagues better than last year, which isn't saying much since last year's STARTING OL was bottom caliber P5 level
100% accurate and irrefragable. Searels loved Linda for reasons unknown to man, but the minute he quit we got better on the OL. Linda was eating up space on seniority alone. Give me Gaynor or Mahoney over that meatball punk any day of the week.Linder tucking tail after Gaynor bullied him like those ND DT's is what improved the 2nd line.
I'm not skeptical of Rick Leonard being able to block chad thomas , Derrick Kelly being able to block joe Jackson , alec eberle and cole mineshaw being able to block rj mcintosh and Kendrick norton. We know they can't. So the same thing can be said for them, their depth is also much worse than oursLast year's second team had St. Louis, Gall, Gauthier - all of whom were starters by the end of the year and kicking ***.
I'm somewhat skeptical of Gaynor holding up against a guy like Derrick Nnadi in a few weeks, or Herbert being able to stay in front of Josh Sweat - so let's hope our starting 5 stay healthy so these new guys have some more time to adjust before they're out there playing against one of the best defenses in the country.
I'm not skeptical of Rick Leonard being able to block chad thomas , Derrick Kelly being able to block joe Jackson , alec eberle and cole mineshaw being able to block rj mcintosh and Kendrick norton. We know they can't. So the same thing can be said for them, their depth is also much worse than oursLast year's second team had St. Louis, Gall, Gauthier - all of whom were starters by the end of the year and kicking ***.
I'm somewhat skeptical of Gaynor holding up against a guy like Derrick Nnadi in a few weeks, or Herbert being able to stay in front of Josh Sweat - so let's hope our starting 5 stay healthy so these new guys have some more time to adjust before they're out there playing against one of the best defenses in the country.
Broke, if you listened to the press conference you would see that Rick clearly said that he's not comfortable enough in having direct substitutes in position by position (Kai-leon for KC for example) and instead would probably kick Trevor Darling to tackle and figure it out. So there is a ways to go on the second line.
You're not wrong to highlight that our second team OL is leagues better than last year, which isn't saying much since last year's STARTING OL was bottom caliber P5 level
Linder tucking tail after Gaynor bullied him like those ND DT's is what improved the 2nd line.
If anyone goes down they'll shuffle the starters around & insert Gaynor, which won't cause that much of a drop off imo.
If McDermott went down Searels would probably kick Darling outside to LT, keep Gauthier at Center & just put Gaynor at LG.Linder tucking tail after Gaynor bullied him like those ND DT's is what improved the 2nd line.
If anyone goes down they'll shuffle the starters around & insert Gaynor, which won't cause that much of a drop off imo.
Exactly.
If McDermott goes down, St Louis moves to LT, Donaldson probably moves to RT, Gauthier moves to RG, and Gaynor steps in.
Basically no matter who goes down it will involve Gaynor coming in at center and Gauthier switching to Guard.
My guess would be McDermott would move to RT and Darling to LT. Donaldson may move to LG and Gaynor plays RG or LG. Just a guess. Clearly our 3rd best OT is Darling then Herbert/Brown. Our 6th best OL is Gaynor.