Pats726

I KNOW this happened Thursday night....and it's Satuurday..but there really has been little said about it. The Burgess trade has been a tidal wave..and with good reason!! Replacing Vrable..pass rush...Oakland..Is he too old..injured?? Wants money?? It all goes on and on....BUT what wa soverlooked has been that AL Johnson is gone..
OK..not THAT big a deal..but...only 3 mentioned that in the Burgess thread...
Patchick...who wondered if this meant Ohrnberger was READY to be teh beats....Spacecrime who wondered what would happen if Koppen/Hochstein went down and DaBruinz..who pointed out that 1.1 mil was saved.....
Some on here claimed the coming of a tall center meant that MAYBE Koppen was in trouble...that Johnson would make it to the 53...Haven't heard from many of those folk in the past 40 hours or so.... BUT I did think a separate thread was needed...NO it's not a big move..but certainly one worth discussing. .He was injured..but to what extent that played a part is unknown..My guess is that it was not a major factor. The saving of 1.1 mil though might be. Wendell played some center in camp, but he's smaller..6'2"...Connolly?? He's more Hochstein size...Ohrenberger?? He's smallish as well...6'2"...so??? What about all the notion of a tall center being needed?? Was this more a release to free some cash??
Thoughts???

RoughingthePasser

There are some big decisions that are going to be made on the O-line this year and obviously for the future too.

I know Koppen has some ties w/ Scott P. and maybe he'll go south to play w/ Cassell-who knows.

Ask Dante.

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"Practice execution equals reality"-BB
'Don't be that guy who ruins a season."' -BParcells

signbabybrady

I think Al Johnson chances were slim when we got him. Hochstein is just so versatile that I would have been suprised to see him go instead. Last years starters are all safe in my mind and you can only keep so many back up linemen on the roster.

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patfanken

I think you can sum it up with the old adage, "you can't make the club from the tub". Injuries hurt Johnson, but I think they might also like the work of Corey Wymer, who is ANOTHER undersized C. They signed him as an UDFA from the Fresno State connection and they've kept him around for SOME reason.

Still they may add someone from the waiver wire, depending on who pops up. Koppen has occassionally been hurt, and I don't think BB would skimp on a back up C, if he thought it wasn't covered.

Triumph

Al Johnson was traded to the Raiduhs according to TSN.Canada

http://www.tsn.ca/nfl/teams/players/...me=nfl-raiders

NEGoldenAge

This is what I get from that link
"The page you requested generated an error or cannot be found."

Methinks the article was inaccurate and taken down.

farn

I was never in the "Al Johnson could start over Koppen" camp. Figure few were, but I saw a couple of posters mention the possibility.

They have craploads of OLs in camp. I am not concerned about the competition.

Bertil

Nope, it's still up. Maybe there was a wink and nod agreement between BB and "Mr. Davis". I don't know what the benefit of that arrangement would be but then again, there's a lot of details about these deals that I don't know...

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patsox23

It tells me Johnson was hurt before camp even started, wasn't getting better fast enough and Ryan Wendell was looking good in practice, which I think I heard from someone at patriots.com.

Triumph

I fixed it.

Sorry about that. Somehow it got edited from another Site.