Urgent
In the Starting Line-Up
- Joined
- Mar 1, 2005
- Messages
- 3,117
- Reaction score
- 1,950
I suspect that sans this past season's ridiculous injury situation DeGuglielmo might still be OL coach.
It's difficult to determine exactly what went wrong with the OL in the AFCCG -- how much of its failure came from injuries and consequent lack of cohesion and how much of it might have been DeGuglielmo not having them properly prepared.
I don't remember the season - but remember the group around five years ago that lost four centers? Maybe 2009 or 2010. Something like Koppen to Wendell to Connolly to someone else. That was under the Scarnecchia regime and they didn't miss a beat.
During the big Super Bowl runs the Pats had a right tackle of the season. Ryan O'Callaghan, Nick Kaczur, Tom Ashworth, Adrian Klemm, Tom Ashworth, Kenyatta Jones, Greg Robinson-Randall. Remember Warren Sapp making fun of Russ Hochstein when Damien Woody went down? All those lines were fine, and they faced as much injury or turnover as this one.
While the team faced several losses on the line, they were not notably worse than when Mankins held out, or the loss of multiple centers.
Lost the top left tackle - but had their highest-paid back-up player in Cannon available, and Denver lost their left tackle as well and adapted.
Lost a rookie rotational guard - but the other one was available, and Kline was clearly a favorite based on his playing time before the injuries.
Lost a veteran back-up guard, but many were arguing for his release earlier.
I think the injuries were significant, but the group Vollmer-Mason-Stork-Kline-Cannon is probably close their desired group - and had time to work together over the last month or two of the season. The problems were deeper than just injuries.