is the problem.
Bill Polian last night on late hits, David Diehl this morning on Sirius NFL Radio and I have heard this previously mainly because the OL poor play issue is across the board. Diehl called Seattle's game last Sunday and said they were brutal, maybe the worst line in the league. The difference is, like Stafford Monday night, they have Wilson who can keep plays alive but apparently he received a couple of vicious, vicious hits. Bob Papa said, at some point, he's going to take a hit he doesn't see coming and that will be it.
So re-thinking some of my earlier thoughts I wonder if this is why we are so bad? Granted, this is Flowers 3rd year and he should be better but according to Diehl, young linemen can no longer develop that muscle memory that is so key in terms of hand placement and other facets of technique.
This makes a lot of sense to me...I am not sure if anyone has found a way to combat this under the current rules because offensive linemen need to be in pads and facing defensive linemen regularly in order to perfect technique and you can no longer do that.
The practice and off-season stuff was the wrong hill to die on. Fight tooth and nail for the money split, contract guarantees, retirement income, health care.
Nobody really wins at the end of the day when you just practice less.
College offenses are trending towards the spread it out, shotgun offenses. Offensive linemen aren't getting the taste of NFL offenses in college they used to
They say teams like Dallas and Denver have great O Lines so why doesn't it affect them?
I say these teams are somehow pulling the Carmen Policy/Eddie Debartolo on the CBA.
Flowers seems like the type of player who did well in college due to his measurables. Not putting the technique together so is getting feasted on in a league where everyone has measurables
Richburg is undersized so having difficulty with push and keeping a pocket.
Jerry is a vet so has no excuses for his performance. Just not starter level.
Hart has the body for a guard in the NFL so is out of position.
Pugh is good at guard. His issue has been health
O-lineman are not going to benefit from 7 on 7 and practices without pads.
Your Zack Martins and Conklins of the world will still make the seamless transition, however, if you take a kid like Flowers with size and attitude but lacks fundamentals and you have trouble. When are you supposed to correct the issues? The only way is through reps in pads. Those are at a minimum now in the preseason.
Colleges are not producing quality OL. That is the issue. The lack of practice time only exacerbates the situation.
I also think McAdoo seems in over his head, but that might not be a big deal if the OL talent was better or better developed (we'll never really know).
Repeatedly we hear that the OL needs development because the players are switching systems. "Too many spread offenses" is the mantra. I think that's not really the case. Sure, if there were more colleges playing a pro-style offense there might be a better way to evaluate those players coming out of college and find players who fit the NFL better.
But the OL isn't the only position who has a lot to learn coming to the NFL. Look at the TE position. There was a graphic the other night that showed Engram's previous route tree (two routes) and what he's running now. He also has new blocking assignments, etc. And we've had TE's come to the NFL and be at least marginally successful (or significantly more so) with very little football experience of any kind, or even after making a position change. Having to learn a new position or learn a new style of offense doesn't seem to impact other positions in football quite like it does the OL.
So why the problems with the OL? In my opinion, the OL is the unit that is most difficult to fix with individual work. Each player can work and work in the offseason to fix their own individuals - strength and conditioning, footwork and hand-placement, studying the offense and their assignments on each play. What the CBA doesn't allow is for the group to be coached TOGETHER during the offseason by the team and its coaches. So what does that suggest?
I think all of the limited time available to Giants coaches should be spent on group drills. Work on play execution. Work on spacing and timing issues as a team. Individual work should be done in the offseason on an individual basis. There is an opportunity for someone like Diehl here. He could start his own offseason camp for players where he teaches the specific techniques that Solari approves. Solari and McAdoo could even refer players to Diehl's camp. The players would need to work on those individual things on their own time, then come to camp prepared from day one to work on play execution as a group.
BTW, this has happened before and is part of the natural evolution of the game, imo. Used to be summer camp was the time for players to get whipped into shape following their offseason of infidelities. The league's common practice has now changed. Players are expected to show up in shape. While the team might provide the facilities to work out in, and might provide nutritional facts and diet plans, the players themselves must monitor their diet and work out individually and are expected to show up in prime condition. Of course this cannot be mandated, and every year we hear about a player or two who shows up a little out of shape. But those reports are becoming fewer and fewer as players who don't do these things during the offseason are not surviving in the competitive NFL.
Teams must realize that the key to offensive success in the NFL is execution, and that given the limited play/practice time the focus should be on execution over fundamentals like hand placement or footwork.
O-lineman are not going to benefit from 7 on 7 and practices without pads.
Your Zack Martins and Conklins of the world will still make the seamless transition, however, if you take a kid like Flowers with size and attitude but lacks fundamentals and you have trouble. When are you supposed to correct the issues? The only way is through reps in pads. Those are at a minimum now in the preseason.
Further compounding it is the fact that many/most college programs are running the spread, so even the reps the OL are getting at the collegiate level are not directly preparing them for the NFL (2-pt stance in college vs 3-pt stance in the NFL, etc). They're coming into the NFL less prepared than ever before with less NFL practice time than ever before to develop their skills.
It's a recipe for disaster. I wonder if the NFLPA would consider amending the CBA to allow OL/DL more contact practice time (at least with shells). Right now, teams only get 14 (!) padded practices during the entire regular season and have to use at least 11 of them in the first 11 weeks of the season. That's really not enough to help linemen develop, and it helps show why McAdoo (just like any coach) would be reluctant to make sweeping lineup changes across the OL. There just isn't enough practice time to implement those changes.
Chris684 : 8:54 am : link : reply
It's a combination of overall less practice time in NCAA followed by lack of training camp reps.
O-lineman are not going to benefit from 7 on 7 and practices without pads.
Your Zack Martins and Conklins of the world will still make the seamless transition, however, if you take a kid like Flowers with size and attitude but lacks fundamentals and you have trouble. When are you supposed to correct the issues? The only way is through reps in pads. Those are at a minimum now in the preseason.
Flowers has had two full seasons and two OL coaches, and makes the same mistakes.....I would think by now the technique should be corrected.....especially from someone drafted in the first 10 players.....
Someone just coming out of college, yes, I agree...
Chris684 : 8:54 am : link : reply
It's a combination of overall less practice time in NCAA followed by lack of training camp reps.
O-lineman are not going to benefit from 7 on 7 and practices without pads.
Your Zack Martins and Conklins of the world will still make the seamless transition, however, if you take a kid like Flowers with size and attitude but lacks fundamentals and you have trouble. When are you supposed to correct the issues? The only way is through reps in pads. Those are at a minimum now in the preseason.
Flowers has had two full seasons and two OL coaches, and makes the same mistakes.....I would think by now the technique should be corrected.....especially from someone drafted in the first 10 players.....
Someone just coming out of college, yes, I agree...
You're entitled to your opinion, and I'm not saying you're necessarily wrong, but I think it's worth at least considering that the extremely limited practice time makes it very tough to overcome technique flaws, which Flowers definitely has. Technique improves through practice, obviously, but really requires significant repetition to develop new muscle memory. Without that, old habits die hard - it allows for those bad technique flaws to continue to rear their ugly head.
If anything, barring a change to the CBA's restrictions on practice time, I think what we'll see is that teams will focus on identifying OL prospects who already have strong technique and just need to improve their strength, since the CBA restrictions on strength and conditioning are far less than the restrictions on padded practice time.
Football is all about team practice, reps, putting in the work on the field together as units. You reduce reps, contact, number of days in full pads hitting etc, you reduce the quality of the product across the board.
It's just different in general and a lot of it doesn't really translate. The spread OL are in a 2-pt stance and the offense is run out of shotgun (or pistol) with many passes getting thrown in under 2-3 seconds with no development of a traditional pocket (kind of like the Giants, except NYG isn't doing it on purpose). And you have to remember that not all spread offenses are exclusively passing; for teams that run the RPO out of the spread, it's really not at all the same as NFL pass or run blocking.
The big one though, IMO, is the footwork and hand placement/coordination because of the 2-pt stance. I'd love to get B in ALB's take on this - he would be able to recognize the modern OL deficiencies compared to before this current CBA.
You might say "Thank you Captain Obvious"