Our starting Tackles are free agents signed last year.
Easton was a UDFA whom we traded Hodges to SF
Drafted Elflein in the 3rd
We have a mix of free agents & draft picks competing for Berger's (6th round pick) spot.
Quote: @TBro said:
@ Jor-El said:
@ minny65 said:
I think we addressed our 5 biggest needs this offseason either through FA or draft with late cuts to come:
QB - Zimmer never bought into Case and being the guy - so we go get Cousins
DL - need better interior players to rotate so we go get Richardson who can also play end
Nickle - per my OP - Alexander needs to be pushed or moved outside as backup so we draft Hughes
Right-side blocking - I see Remmers back there with O'Neil as backup/swing and Hill as LT backup only
Guard replacement for Berger - tons of competition on roster, free agents and draft plus late cuts.
These guys don't need to be high draft picks, but I am surprised there was little or no effort to reinforce the OL in free agency - not a Riley Reiff, but someone better than Tom Compton (who I think is about the level of Jeremiah Sirles). Someone like Cameron Fleming, who started much of last season at RT for the Patriots, and signed with the Cowboys for only $2.5M, would have been nice insurance on the right without breaking the bank.
Remember Jor-El, according to Rick, you can't just go around signing competent free agent lineman, or drafting a stud like Will Hernandez, it's all about scheme fit.
Which has worked for every other Unit on the team. Meanwhile, most of the League has crappy O-Lines and started Drafting Centers and Guards earlier than ever before.
And while the film of Hernandez pulling was cool, that doesn't mean he would have been slower or even much slower on pulls than Minnesota's current starters.
Quote: @JimmyinSD said:
@ medaille said:
@ FSUVike said:
Why does the starting RG have to come.from a first or second round pick?
A.legit question nobody will answer. The Eagles have the best Line. They have a first, second, third, sixth and UDFA as their starters with a fifth round pick getting lots of PT at LT.
Three and often four of there starters came after the 2nd Round. And those likely came from shallower drafts than this past one. So not exactly a bunch of steals that got pushed down the board due to a deep O-Line draft.
So explain to me exactly how Minnesota screwed up this draft by not getting an RG in the first or second.
I agree with 65. The draft hit all the big holes that got exposed in the Saints game.
Just because the Eagles were able to do it doesn't mean that we won't see the OLine hamstring our 2018 attempt at winning a SB. The Eagles starting line last year had 34 years of experience (500+ starts) going into the season with the least experienced player having 4 years of experience. Our Oline going into the season is going to have 13 years of experience over the 4 returning starters (150ish starts) and likely fill in the 5th position with a guy who has less than 15 starts. Our 3rd most experienced OLineman has 17 starts to his career.
Are we trying to win now or are we waiting until our OLine prospects get 4-6 years of experience so that they can weather injuries? And while we can say that RT was the biggest need against NO, we didn't get a RT that is starting ready, but our 2022 OLine is projecting to be pretty solid so there's that.
I do like Hughes a lot though and he will contribute, but our OLine is downgraded pretty noticeably compared to last year, and we haven't addressed it so far in any way that will impact this year, unless O'Neill rapidly gains either technique or strength.
how do you say the OL is down graded? Berger was serviceable but never really made anybody comfortable with the job he was doing, and Sirles never really found a position as he was jumped all over so he never really settled in anywhere. I think they will be just as good or better in terms of getting our better younger guys more quality reps in camp to better prepare them for real snaps. (Isidora, Collins, Hill as well as the new guys) also the addition of the Compton and Andrews should more than make up for what we lost. IMO our line will be better as long as it can stay relatively healthy, the last 2 years are ridiculous in terms of having to juggle players across the front 5. I hope they learn to just take the next man up at the position instead of sliding guys left and right to get in a guy that has worked all offseason at a different position.
Easton and Elflein both had season ending surgeries late in the season. Will their bones be healed sufficiently soon enough that they don't lose too much strength over the offseason. And we're going to replace Berger with either one of the guys that played so well late in the season, with Compton/Andrews who are career backups and have 15/0 career starts, or with a rookie who most people think needs some time to build up a competent level of strength. We're going from 3 solid veteran guys and 2 promising young guys to 2 solid veteran guys, 2 promising but injured young guys, and a big question mark.
This was not a draft that maximized their current window. You can make an argument that Hughes was BPA, but O'neill is much tougher to make a case for. I think that the Vikings misjudged the draft, jumped on Hughes early, and then it turned out that the top OL were gone before our pick in the 2nd and that good CB prospects lasted for quite a while. The draft can be hard to predict, but just purely on positional need and the depth of the draft, taking Hughes over OL help doesn't look great right now.
Maybe in 2-years, this will look a lot better with cost-controlled replacements for Waynes or Alexander and Reiff already on the roster, but they missed a chance to maximize the next two years. Not such a huge whiff that it ruins their window, but it puts pressure on guys like Isadora and Hill to perform, when they should have been backups. The picks after that are at least decent, save for the awful move to trade up for a kicker. Using a 5th and 6th to move up in the second for OL help would have been more useful than replacing Forbath.
We at least signed a good RFA class, which offsets some of the sting from the draft, but we had a chance to get better and kicked the can down the road.
Quote: @Tyr said:
This was not a draft that maximized their current window. You can make an argument that Hughes was BPA, but O'neill is much tougher to make a case for. I think that the Vikings misjudged the draft, jumped on Hughes early, and then it turned out that the top OL were gone before our pick in the 2nd and that good CB prospects lasted for quite a while. The draft can be hard to predict, but just purely on positional need and the depth of the draft, taking Hughes over OL help doesn't look great right now.
Maybe in 2-years, this will look a lot better with cost-controlled replacements for Waynes or Alexander and Reiff already on the roster, but they missed a chance to maximize the next two years. Not such a huge whiff that it ruins their window, but it puts pressure on guys like Isadora and Hill to perform, when they should have been backups. The picks after that are at least decent, save for the awful move to trade up for a kicker. Using a 5th and 6th to move up in the second for OL help would have been more useful than replacing Forbath.
We at least signed a good RFA class, which offsets some of the sting from the draft, but we had a chance to get better and kicked the can down the road.
Agree and disagree. I don't think you can say Huges was taken early since he was rated as a middle first rounder and higher than Jaire Alexander by many. I do think they misjudged the draft though and missed out on what was an historic class of interior linemen...all clumped between 20 and 40 and our pick was at 30.
I was surprised by the kicker pick, but this is a team with so few holes it sort of makes sense. So to the NFL's best defense, and what looks like a top 10, or even top 5, offense, we add the best kick returner in the draft, and the best kicker. A kicker who, if he plays to his potential, could really be a weapon. As George Allen famously said, football is 1/3 offense, 1/3 defense and 1/3 special teams.
Quote: @Tyr said:
This was not a draft that maximized their current window. You can make an argument that Hughes was BPA, but O'neill is much tougher to make a case for. I think that the Vikings misjudged the draft, jumped on Hughes early, and then it turned out that the top OL were gone before our pick in the 2nd and that good CB prospects lasted for quite a while.
I think all three of our OL targets were gone before our Hughes pick at 30. Price, Ragnow and Wynn all gone in late teens early 20's. So our other high position of need was corner and we took our highest ranked BPA at a position of need. I think almost everyone was surprised that those 3 were gone so early. I didn't see any mock drafts or analyst predictions that had them 3 going there either. Even if we had plans to move up we didn't have the ammo to get up to where those three went anyway. So we essentially had no chance at what I think were our Top 3 Lineman.
The draft can be hard to predict, but just purely on positional need and the depth of the draft, taking Hughes over OL help doesn't look great right now.
Picking late and at non-skill positions never makes a draft look great but I and other predicted we would go corner with our 30th pick and Hughes is IMO going to be a starting slot corner with Alexander bumped outside or our 4th corner. We had a big need for a slot corner IMO Alexander was exposed in both playoff games and I made a thread about it vs the Saints game.
IMO we didn't have any of the remaining OL rated close to what we had Hughes rated so I am all for BPA and not reachig for any ole OL. We clearly did not think very highly of hernandez and we will see that play out.
Maybe in 2-years, this will look a lot better with cost-controlled replacements for Waynes or Alexander and Reiff already on the roster, but they missed a chance to maximize the next two years. Not such a huge whiff that it ruins their window, but it puts pressure on guys like Isadora and Hill to perform, when they should have been backups. The picks after that are at least decent, save for the awful move to trade up for a kicker. Using a 5th and 6th to move up in the second for OL help would have been more useful than replacing Forbath.
We at least signed a good RFA class, which offsets some of the sting from the draft, but we had a chance to get better and kicked the can down the road.
just a bit to add. Alexander was picked on, but a few caveats. Who are you going to test on our D? They tried Rhodes and failed. Waynes was solid as well. Brees is a good QB and is going to get his at times, and it came at the expense of the weakest link. But Rhodes and Waynes are strong links, so being the weakest of those 3 doesn't mean Alex sucks.
Brees got hot and our D was on its heels. Zimmer admitted that he missed a call on the 4th down play IIRC. Said he went to that call one too many times. Every defense is going to have weak spots. A good defensive scheme will just keep offense from being comfortable enough to find them.
As to the blocking and Hill, I think he filled in well. Easton's injury created a hole that needed to be filled. Right or not, the coaches went with the veteran Remmers inside and Hill outside. I doubt Remmers would have fared much better against an excellent DE in Jordan. Hill is probably a better pass blocker than Remmers. Moving guys will always lead to second guessing. But if Isadora had started at LG we may have struggled there.
Playoffs. 2nd round. Teams are going to be good and usually synced up and the Saints were a good team.
Quote: @greediron said:
just a bit to add. Alexander was picked on, but a few caveats. Who are you going to test on our D? They tried Rhodes and failed. Waynes was solid as well. Brees is a good QB and is going to get his at times, and it came at the expense of the weakest link. But Rhodes and Waynes are strong links, so being the weakest of those 3 doesn't mean Alex sucks.
Brees got hot and our D was on its heels. Zimmer admitted that he missed a call on the 4th down play IIRC. Said he went to that call one too many times. Every defense is going to have weak spots. A good defensive scheme will just keep offense from being comfortable enough to find them.
As to the blocking and Hill, I think he filled in well. Easton's injury created a hole that needed to be filled. Right or not, the coaches went with the veteran Remmers inside and Hill outside. I doubt Remmers would have fared much better against an excellent DE in Jordan. Hill is probably a better pass blocker than Remmers. Moving guys will always lead to second guessing. But if Isadora had started at LG we may have struggled there.
Playoffs. 2nd round. Teams are going to be good and usually synced up and the Saints were a good team.
Agree with your take on Alex to some degree. When you have a top defense their is usually no glaring weakness and I don't think Alexander is overall bad. He is average and young with upside to improve. But he was the reason the Saints got into FG range for what would have been a game winner. The 4th down play was the key and he was burned on that but he also gave an easy first down earlier in that crucial drive when he didn't know his coverage and Bree's saw that and went right to his man. So Alex gave up 2 crucial first downs and about 30 yards on that last drive. There is room for improvement and Hughes might be that pushing Alex to 4th corner.
I disagree on Hill. He did not fill in well. He gave up the most pressures of any OL in the playoffs including teams that played 3 games. He was abused in both games and Jordan had a field day going against him the whole second half of the Saints game. Remmers would have done better because he did all year including the season opener against Jordan and Saints.
Alexander was just in his second year playing the hardest CB spot to learn (IMO). You all are giving up way too quickly. Now he may not be a long term starter in the slot and may be better suited for the outside I have no idea but the CB they just drafted really didn't even play the Slot CB spot in college. You think he will walk on and be a lot better?
Not very realistic from my view.
Hill I prefer at backup with Collins as the RT of the future. I like Collins more than Hill for some reason. Although maybe neither becomes a long term starter?
Camp will be interesting
|
