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Doug's avatar

I am in a “don’t worry, be happy” frame of mind (inevitable link below) when it come to the OL for these reasons:

LT—barring injury Cross is a beast.

LG—Tomlinson is at least as good as Lewis, so no loss. Plus Haynes can back up.

C—Williams could be a significant upgrade. If he has injury issues I am confident Olu Olu can step in and be more than good enough,

RG—ok Bradford got the vet nod over the rookie Haynes to start but Haynes will be at least close if has to step in for Bradford.

Beyond the 5 who start vs Denver this week, there is Grubb’s scheme that should give Geno viable options if pass pro breaks down and/or scheming WR help on running plays (I keep seeing Laviska’s block to spring Kenny Mac on his long TD run, and we know Bobo can do that too, not to mention Pharoh Brown and Barrett who are both plus blockers.)

https://youtu.be/d-diB65scQU?si=FgFvFA69O5uxTg_V

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Mike McD's avatar

It would be hard to say that this offensive line is improved from last year, IMO. with any sort of degree of confidence from a skill standpoint.

Losing Lewis who the market valued his services at $13.2M and replacing with Laken for $1.2M does not inspire confidence for me.

However, I believe that Cross was more injured last year than he led on, and he is a good pass blocker regardless, IMO. Williams could be an upgrade as we got him through a weird FA. And Bradford at least has some NFL experience now.

Part of coaching improvement could just be the line making less assignment errors. It's one thing to get beat on lack of skill, but last year the amount of times the line ran into each other or blocked the wrong person seemed far too high for the NFL. Just simply cutting down on errors could help.

Lastly, Geno Smith was incredible over the last month of the season even with a terrible line. He was second in EPA/Play putting up great performances on the road at Dallas, Tenn, Cards, and at home against Pitt.

If Geno can play at that level at the end of a tough year when the D already quit ... What can he do even with the same bad line but a potentially great OC and good defense?

All that is to say ... because Geno has already played at a high level behind a really bad line and an OC that was fired. He still might be very good even if the line doesn't get better. Lot for him to shoulder but we've already seen he can do it.

Go Hawks ... Will be at the game Sunday and cannot wait to see what happens.

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