Will Hernandez = monster

[Guest]

@mjollnir_k said:

@medaille said:
I think we continually underinvest in our OLine.  Last year we should have drafted Hernandez
and O’Neill.  I don’t buy the argument
that Hernandez is a bad scheme fit.  I
don’t think his optimal scheme is a Zone scheme, but I think he’s more than
capable in a Zone scheme.  This year, we
could still have drafted Bradbury and brought in Kline and we would have a legit
OLine, rather than one we hope is good enough. 
I like Hughes though.  He’s going
to be good.

Then explain why we have invested more and higher draft stock then the years before Rick?

Are you talking about pre-Elflein or post-Elflein?


I would break up the timeline like this:


1998 – One of the best OLines we’ve had in (especially in
the last 20 years)  Consisted of 3x 1st
round picks and 2 FA.


1998 – 2005:  Little turnover
on OLine.  Good players.  Not much need to draft new players very often.  2002 First year of McKinnie.  2005 last year of Birk.


2006 - 2011:  Spielman
VPPP.  Slow decline in quality of
players.  2006 Hutchinson in FA.  Cook and Loadholt at RT with 2nd
round picks.  Other players are good but
not great late rounders and mediocre FAs. 
Our late rounders were adequate starters.


2012 – 2017:  Spielman
GM.  We invested only low round picks (except
Kalil) and overpaid mediocre FAs, none of it really worked out.


2017+:  Spielman
realized we needed to invest draft picks into our OLine, and has proceeded to
use 1x 1-3 rounder per year and it’s slowly being rebuilt.


I think pre-Spielman, we hit on a couple players and just
rode them for a while.  Early Spielman we
continued to ride them, while supplementing with Hutchinson and Loadholt.  Then we lost McKinnie and Hutchinson, busted
on Kalil and guys like Sullivan and Loadholt got injured and we were sunk.  As each of these guys was lost we replaced
them with scrubs.


I think it’s fair to say that we were not good at developing
guys on the OLine in the later years, and nothing we tried really worked, but when
you are that deficient on the OLine you need to legitimately invest in high
quality players to get back the momentum.  I think we should have fixed this OLine sometime
during the Bridgewater era at the latest, but we went through his entire Viking
tenure without giving him a functional OLine.

[Guest]

O'Neill and Hughes crushes Hernandez. We made out like a champ on that comparison.

[Guest]

@medaille said:

@mjollnir_k said:

@medaille said:
I think we continually underinvest in our OLine.  Last year we should have drafted Hernandez
and O’Neill.  I don’t buy the argument
that Hernandez is a bad scheme fit.  I
don’t think his optimal scheme is a Zone scheme, but I think he’s more than
capable in a Zone scheme.  This year, we
could still have drafted Bradbury and brought in Kline and we would have a legit
OLine, rather than one we hope is good enough. 
I like Hughes though.  He’s going
to be good.

Then explain why we have invested more and higher draft stock then the years before Rick?

Are you talking about pre-Elflein or post-Elflein?


I would break up the timeline like this:


1998 – One of the best OLines we’ve had in (especially in
the last 20 years)  Consisted of 3x 1st
round picks and 2 FA.


1998 – 2005:  Little turnover
on OLine.  Good players.  Not much need to draft new players very often.  2002 First year of McKinnie.  2005 last year of Birk.


2006 - 2011:  Spielman
VPPP.  Slow decline in quality of
players.  2006 Hutchinson in FA.  Cook and Loadholt at RT with 2nd
round picks.  Other players are good but
not great late rounders and mediocre FAs. 
Our late rounders were adequate starters.


2012 – 2017:  Spielman
GM.  We invested only low round picks (except
Kalil) and overpaid mediocre FAs, none of it really worked out.


2017+:  Spielman
realized we needed to invest draft picks into our OLine, and has proceeded to
use 1x 1-3 rounder per year and it’s slowly being rebuilt.


I think pre-Spielman, we hit on a couple players and just
rode them for a while.  Early Spielman we
continued to ride them, while supplementing with Hutchinson and Loadholt.  Then we lost McKinnie and Hutchinson, busted
on Kalil and guys like Sullivan and Loadholt got injured and we were sunk.  As each of these guys was lost we replaced
them with scrubs.


I think it’s fair to say that we were not good at developing
guys on the OLine in the later years, and nothing we tried really worked, but when
you are that deficient on the OLine you need to legitimately invest in high
quality players to get back the momentum.  I think we should have fixed this OLine sometime
during the Bridgewater era at the latest, but we went through his entire Viking
tenure without giving him a functional OLine.

Look at the 7 Years Rick has been GM.  15 draft picks to 8 before and when he was part of the Tri-Angle of Authority.  You have to go to damn near 1999 to get to that many picks.  We had guys tha cam in first years and exceed expectations.  Kalil, Baca, Clemmings (first year he was good) but they could not continue their good play.  And yes we have ahad guys like Yankey and Beavers.

[Guest]

Reiff and Dark Elf in Pass Pro is the biggest problem on this team right now. And there's zero chance Rick and Mike would have picked Hernandez and O'Neill in consecutive Rounds. Zero chance.

[Guest]

@FSUVike said:
Reiff and Dark Elf in Pass Pro is the biggest problem on this team right now. And there's zero chance Rick and Mike would have picked Hernandez and O'Neill in consecutive Rounds. Zero chance.

I've been bitching about Reiff since we signed him. The team needs to do better than him. If that means next year O'Neill at LT and Udoh at RT, let's do it. 

[Guest]

Rick’s strategy has always been to load up on a lot of day 3
players so he doesn’t have to compete on the UDFA market for the players he
wants.  I think that’s a decent strategy,
but it doesn’t make me feel like he was trying very hard to fix our OLine when
he was drafting only guys that have a 10-15% chance of becoming a consistent starter.  It takes 6-7 late rounders to equal the same
chance of getting a starter as using a first rounder.  That said, we also sucked at developing them,
which is also real.

[Guest]

@medaille said:

Are you talking about pre-Elflein or post-Elflein?


I would break up the timeline like this:


1998 – One of the best OLines we’ve had in (especially in
the last 20 years)  Consisted of 3x 1st
round picks and 2 FA.


1998 – 2005:  Little turnover
on OLine.  Good players.  Not much need to draft new players very often.  2002 First year of McKinnie.  2005 last year of Birk.


2006 - 2011:  Spielman
VPPP.  Slow decline in quality of
players.  2006 Hutchinson in FA.  Cook and Loadholt at RT with 2nd
round picks.  Other players are good but
not great late rounders and mediocre FAs. 
Our late rounders were adequate starters.


2012 – 2017:  Spielman
GM.  We invested only low round picks (except
Kalil) and overpaid mediocre FAs, none of it really worked out.


2017+:  Spielman
realized we needed to invest draft picks into our OLine, and has proceeded to
use 1x 1-3 rounder per year and it’s slowly being rebuilt.


I think pre-Spielman, we hit on a couple players and just
rode them for a while.  Early Spielman we
continued to ride them, while supplementing with Hutchinson and Loadholt.  Then we lost McKinnie and Hutchinson, busted
on Kalil and guys like Sullivan and Loadholt got injured and we were sunk.  As each of these guys was lost we replaced
them with scrubs.


I think it’s fair to say that we were not good at developing
guys on the OLine in the later years, and nothing we tried really worked, but when
you are that deficient on the OLine you need to legitimately invest in high
quality players to get back the momentum.  I think we should have fixed this OLine sometime
during the Bridgewater era at the latest, but we went through his entire Viking
tenure without giving him a functional OLine.

Good look at the history.  I would add that 2012 to 2018, we have had lots of turnover in the offensive coaching, did we not?  Zimmer brought Norv and his deep drop passing attack, then shurmur replaced Norv and we covered many ills with his creative play call. 

Zimmer has been good at hitting on the defensive draft picks, but the offensive guys have struggled to identify good players there.  I think Sparano was a good coach, but the Beavers experience showed he didn't identify talent that well.  Kalil had the talent, but I think his desire and off-season commitment were not pro-caliber.

[Guest]

if we only bucked up a couple of dollars we could have had Whitworth over Reiff. 

The last 3 years with Whitworth would have been something, particularly 17 and now. 

[Guest]

@minny65 said:

@Bullazin said:

@Purplewhizz said:
I’d still rather have O’neal and Hughes

You mean Hughes > Hernandez? Dont know how you put Oneil in there.  Still im sure a few would agree with ya.  Hughes looks like a goodun, But considering our 2 losses this year are mainly due to poor OG play, I think the large majority would disagree, not to mention the train wreck that was our G play last year, basically turning a playoff team to not a playoff team 

Yea, Hernandez looks really good.  I was all over him before the draft but Guru talked me into him not being a fit for our scheme

I then really liked Isiah Wynn who went a few picks before us and has been injured for the Patriots ever since....oh well :0

Back to Purplewhizz's comment, I think what he means by keeping O'Neill in the mix is because if we had taken Hernandez I don't think we would have went OL again at that spot.  But that is projection.  

Lastly, I agree with you overall.  I wish we had taken Hernandez because this team needed a stud Guard last year and moving forward.  The Raiders just ran for 170 yards and 4.3 per carry against a Bears D that we ran for 40 yards and 2.5 per carry with a better back.  

“Hernandez showed exceptionally well throughout his rookie season, especially in pass protection. He ended eight of his 16 games with a pass-blocking grade over 70.0, and he allowed just 29 pressures from 664 pass-blocking snaps on the year. More impressively, however, is the fact that he committed all of two penalties on 1,027 offensive snaps last year — an impressive feat for a first-year player at the position.”

I remember Minny, Guru appeased me at the time too.  Lets take solace in that Hughsie looks like a good one 

[Guest]

@Skodin said:
if we only bucked up a couple of dollars we could have had Whitworth over Reiff. 

The last 3 years with Whitworth would have been something, particularly 17 and now. 

Sorry, that's not factual at all. Whitworth reportedly took less money because his family wanted to live on the Coast.