Former Husky Donald Thomas Ready To Resume His Rise

Nobody is infallible, but given an option I would trust the opinion of the person who prepared more over the opinion of the person who prepared less particularly when it comes to saying one player did x more than other players. I have not watched every play of Groves last year nor have I watched every other center's plays. If you can tell me you did than your negativity would have more merit. All I can tell from the evidence you've presented is that Grove got beaten too much in one game and that some Raider fans didn't like him. I don't find that as convincing as the evidence of somebody who watched every play and knows that he beat his opponent 90.6% of the time and that every other center but one got beat a higher % of the time.

 

Well lets look at Ronnie

2005 - The stats pages say that he missed 2 games, but he really only missed one game (Tennessee) with an ankle injury, the other game he was just inactive/reserve. Keep in mind that Ronnie held out of camp in his rookie year and his injury could be attributed to lack of preparation for the grueling season.

2006 - Ronnie missed 3 games with a broken hand as a result of a helmet on bone hit. He returned to the lineup and started the final 2 games and picked up where he left off by rushing for over 100 yards against the Colts and the Jets. I would classify that injury as a freak injury, there was nothing about it that leads us to believe that it's a chronic issue, it was a helmet on hand hit. Could have happened to anyone, bad luck is all.

2007 - Ronnie was lighting up the league before Trent Green went down, with Cleo Lemon taking snaps and throwing interceptions, Ronnie hurt his knee doing something that he wasn't used to. Players spend all of preseason and practice during the season doing repetitive tasks, getting into the groove and running the same plays over and over so it becomes second nature to them. Ronnie's injury occurred when he was doing something that was foreign to him, it had nothing to do with lack of preparation or a susceptibility to injury. It was a freak occurrence IMO.

2008 - completely healthy and played the whole season

So in total, he missed 13 games, 7 of which were a result of a season ending knee injury, 3 were due to another unavoidable injury (helmet to hand), 1 game in 2005 was due to an ankle injury and the other he was inactive/reserve. So the majority of games missed were due to unavoidable freak injuries.

I would love to see a definitive list of Grove's injuries all the way back to his college days, I've seen that he injured his knee more than once, he suffered a calf injury that limited him and also a shoulder injury that caused him to miss significant time. None of those injuries were freak unavoidable injuries. But here is something that I found interesting on my search of his injury past.

I remember the Raiders making the move, but wasn't aware of the reason why because I don't follow Oakland religiously. I've seen a few people point to the fact that the Raiders OL was horrible, so what does it say that Grove was having a hard time winning a starting job, so much so that the team needed to go out and find another player?

As far as Ricky goes, he left the game and suffered injuries when he tried to return and get back into the swing of things. I wouldn't classify him as an injury prone player, so his ability to play a full season last year isn't surprising.

Bell missed significant time, but a broken leg isn't something that I would classify as "injury prone", football is a tough sport and it takes alot to break a bone. Bell's achilles injury also doesn't lend itself to the idea that he's injury prone. If he were to suffer another injury to that tendon, then you could talk about it being a recurring theme. His ability to stay healthy isn't a shocker, I think fans look specifically at amount of games missed and not the nature of the injuries. Take Trent Green for example, concussions are nothing to fool around with and once a player suffers one, he is susceptible to suffering another and more severe concussion.....which he did. That's an injury that would suggest a player who is injury prone, another would be a degenerative disorder or recurring injury to the same body part.

Pennington....his history shows that he can't put back to back healthy seasons together, or have we been ignoring what the Jets fans have been warning us about or even what we used to point out to them? Pennington is injury prone, suffering multiple rotator cuff injuries within a short period of time. I wouldn't get all giddy because he made it through a full season for only the second time in his career, unless of course you want to wager some real money on it.

Jason Ferguson has been very durable over his career, bad example and it seems as though you are just randomly selecting any player that had an injury to say "ah ha!". I'm not exactly sure what your point was with this one.

Giving up on your team and teammates is not an admirable thing for any player to do, if there is any proof that Grove did infact drag his feet then I definitely don't want him here. Again, poor example and I don't know of any facts to back that up. I'll address this again because I've seen it a few times, people say that the Raiders OL wasn't very good, so what does it say about Grove that he wasn't able to stand out from the group? Raf posted a few stats earlier that are misleading (not on his part) because it's tough to discern who is responsible for yards gained on the ground, but I did find another stat (if you're into that sort of thing) that runs contrary to Raf's numbers. Take a look at the adjusted line yards ranking for the Raiders when running up the middle, Oakland ranked 30th in '08 and 28th in '06 when Grove played a full season for the first time in his career.
http://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/ol2006

Again, it's tough to pinpoint responsibility in these stats because the rushing game is a team effort, but there are a set of stats that seem to show that the Raiders didn't get much push up the middle from Grove. Make of it what you will.

Well, as Marty pointed out, he didn't say that. But I think it speaks a bit to how you view my POV, I'm not downgrading or slamming our players, I'm just pointing out facts to keep things in perspective. I'm seeing alot of talk that our OL is going to be the best, how we're going to dominate, Ronnie is slated to run for at least 1,500 yards and we even have a nickname for the unit (orca 5), I think folks are getting a little ahead of themselves and I'm just trying to keep the discussion honest.

Do I want Grove to go down and miss a large chunk of the season? Absolutely not, I want all of our players to stay healthy and play above their potential, but history is nothing to thumb your nose at. When Jake Grove has only played 12 or more games one time throughout his career, that's something that you have to take into account when talking about what we may expect from him.

If that's slang for cautious, guilty as charged. I know how you young folks like to talk funny, bad means good and up means down.

 

Well Raf, agree to disagree, but take a look at the stats that I just posted for padre. I still hold firm that you can't pinpoint responsibility in team rushing yards, but there is a set of stats that show that the Raiders didn't get much push up the middle with Grove, make of it what you will. I haven't watched every Raider game, but I know that ck and Boomer have seen Grove and their initial reactions to his signing and play were extremely sour. I also know a handful of diehard Raider fans who echoed that opinion, so take that anyway you want. We'll see how he performs this season.

 

There could be a misassumption here L2G, all us fans have to go on is the KC Joyner stats, the next step, projecting that is what Sparano and Ireland saw as well is a fairly large leap on all of our parts, if they went back to 07 to look at a healthy Eric Green then it would not be illogical that they also went back and looked at all the film available for Jake Grove as well.

As for the other stuff, I'm not here to keyboard duel, I'm here to chill and enjoy fellow phinfans company.

 

And I as well, just answering your questions to the best of my ability.

 

I checked the link and didn't find any stats. Maybe its a membership thing.

And you may question the rushing yards, but Joyner stats are pretty specific that 90.6% of the time the guy Grove was blocking didn't tough the runner and didn't fill the lane. I just don't see how anybody can ignore that, short of calling Joyner a liar.

And I admit that I wasn't thrilled with the Grove signing but it was based primarily on the injury history. This regime seems to believe they can rectify that with many players.

 

just because our brother 23rd likes to make up some funny nicknames does'nt mean we all feel that way about our oline.lol...he cracks me up sometimes..

I expect them to be a better unit, Jake being in his 2nd year, Jake rubbing off and working out with vernon his new best buddy , a healthy smiley, an upgrade at center, and one little bit of hope for donald. It at least projects to be better..

 

whilst i am reserved about Smiley and Thomas and how much they will actually play ... i do agree with 23rd, that this line will round into form by the end of this season.

we have the potential to have very good, if not exceptional T play depending upon how Vernon does ... and a very good prospect in Andrew Gardner

regardless of what most think of Grove, i believe our C play (so long as he is on the field) will be improved over Satele ... markedly so.

G will be our ??? all season, but we have enough veteran and youth bodies to throw at the problem until we find a solution in camp. To me, the key with Thomas - is not necessarily that he is missing the 1st part of camp ... it is that he is missing the strength training -- i believe that is what he needed to work on this offseason, and he hasn't been able to do that (at least given his injury, i can't imagine he has effectively done so). I do believe he will work his way back into the starting lineup by midseason (when, more than likely Smiley will injure himself out of the lineup). We'll see whether Muphy, Lewis, Garner, Quinn or Frye can show something. I don't want to see Alleman or Ndukwe as our primary backups headed into the season.

Grove to me will be the linchpin, as if we have to go with Berger ... it won't be so nice potentially heading into the playoffs ......

 

That's a good point. Other than 23rd and a few other posters, most aren't predicting a huge increase in rushing yards. I posted a prediction a few weeks back and I had the rushing totals going up by a couple of hundred yards (about 12.5 yards more per game).

And it was based on the same reasoning. Improvement from JL and him working better with Smiley. Grove winning more one on one battles than Satele did. And everybody (except Grove) having a second TC in the same system.

 

Well, ranks and percentages and they weren't very kind to the Raiders when running up the middle.

Not a liar, I think that's a bit of an extreme view of disagreeing with the idea that you can accurately determine who is responsible for rushing numbers. Agree to disagree, I guess.

I'm sure they do, but this wonderful training program that I keep hearing about didn't prevent Thomas from getting injured twice in less than a year, it didn't prevent Smiley from going down or Cammy or Satele. I think too much is made about our training program, some feel that it will magically change the fortunes of players with injury concerns and that's an overly optimistic way of looking at it IMO. I hope they can change his habit of injuries, I'm just going to wait until I see it before I feel comfortable, as I'm sure you will.

 

If I recall correctly, Grove has really only had one major injury. He had a subsequent leg injury, but that was a result of the initial injury. I'm not sure he has had chronic injury issues throughout his career.

And if anyone thinks Grove is not a dominant center, please go watch him last year against New England. He handled Wilfork as well as I've seen anyone play against Wilfork.

 

I can understand not agreeing with attributing yards to one player. That would of course also discredit your posting of ranks and percentages for the Raiders up the middle. What I don't understand is how you can claim to disagree with the percentage of wins in one on one blocks. Either the opponent made contact with the runner or he didn't. The opponent either filled the lane or he didn't. These seem like black and white determinations. Once you make those black and white determinations it's very easy to compare one number with another. So either you think he's lying about the black and white determinations or you're questioning his math skills.

 

Which I prefaced in an earlier post, I still feel that you can't attribute responsibility to individuals, I just posted the link for those that disagree with me on that.

I'm not disagreeing with the percentages, I'm disagreeing with that equating to him being a dominant player. There is much more to it than just percentages of one on one plays, how does Grove handle getting to the second level? How does he do in pass pro? How does he do when occupying more than one blocker? How does he do with recognizing and picking up the blitz? So much more goes into it than a single isolated stat, I just don't buy it as the end all in this discussion.

 

I can buy that. IMO Grove is at least as good as Satele in pass pro. And he's a considerable upgrade in handling NTs one on one, which is something that the Dolphins like to do. I have no idea how Grove is at recognition and communicating the calls to the rest of the line.

 

Grove notched a POA winning percentage of 90.6% while allowing backs to gain 6.2 yards per attempt behind his blocks. And Grove didn’t need a lot of help either. The ex Raider went one on one with defenders 67.5% of the time in 2008, far more frequently then either Matt Birk (39.9%) or Jason Brown (60.3%)."

 

Already addressed this, there is much more that goes into whether or not a player is dominant than one isolated stat. It would be like saying Patrick Cobbs had a higher yards per carry average (7.3) than Ronnie Brown (4.3) so he's obviously the better player. Or That David Martin had a higher yards per catch average (14.5) than Andre Johnson (13.7) so obviously Martin is the more dominant player.

 

the guy had three stats that were used together to make a point.

 

The one stat being derived from one on one matchups

 

My only concern is health. I have no doubt that he could do fine overall, and likely upgrade our run game inside to boot. And, imo, if he can hold the same success percentage in our division we are in very good shape inside. So lets hope we get an entire season from him.

 

he used three stats, you are just choosing to ignore the other two.

 

I'm not ignoring anything, the three stats are derived from one on one matchups, it's just one aspect of the game. See my reply to Raf, there is much more that goes into determining whether or not a player is dominant, how he does in pass pro, how well he picks up blitzes, how well he gets to the 2nd level, etc. This is one isolated area that people are trying to jump on to make a point that Grove is a top tier C and it doesn't wash, just as if someone tried to say that Cobbs and Martin are dominant players by using one isolated argument.

 

Interesting, Grove also only gave up 1.5 sacks last season as well.

 

However they would be wrong because it is impossible since you cannot combine three stats that are related to show that Cobbs and Martin are dominat players. Martin is missing the amount of catches it takes while Cobbs is missing the amount of carries.

 

that is 4 stats

 

I hope the entire offensive line stays healthy and gets stronger as they jell together.

 

At the end of the day though, Jake Grove is our starting Center heading into 2009, 2008 is like a whole different country, all stats can do is give us some idea what to expect from Grove.

We will know what is cooking with him in the first game against the Falcons, G Jackson left, they are sort of disarrayed on defense, if Grove is worth Jason Brown money we will know it soon enough.

 

I totally agree that we will find out. Grove has some great potential against 3-4 defenses.

 

Exactly, during the preseason one of the more enjoyable things to do is to place a sort of "bet" on certain players doing well this season.

I like Wake, White, Davis, P Turner , Chad Pennington and JT and surprisngly I still like Rod Wright, these guys may be good, great, invisible or bit players.

That is part of the fan package, if any of those cats bust out or never really play then there is nothing really lost.

 

I basically agree with what cnc66 stated. I have no problem with Grove as our starting center. I'm sure he will do fine, and be an upgrade over Satele. The problem is his injury history.

 

Even if Grove does stay healthy and does well, the 23rd's predictions are still incredibly high.

He predicted our line to be not only one of the most dominant in the NFL, but one of the most dominant ever (comparable to the great Redskin Hogs). How can this prediction be made based on last years inability to run inside? We have the same exact line with the exception of one player.

Can they improve? Sure. But enough to go from a below average run blocking line to one of the best in NFL history? Highly unlikely.

 

We will have three different interior starters. Long and Carey are both Pro Bowl caliber players, and I'm of the opinion that Grove can be a Pro Bowler in this system. Remember, we also gave a good deal of money to Smiley last year. So, on the surface, this is an offensive line that is expected to be elite.

 

Well I'd say 2 different starters. Our Oline wasn't lighting the world on fire in the run game with Smiley at LG.

I just don't think that the addition of Grove and a guy who has played 1 game in his career elevate us from sub-mediocre against a weak schedule to expected to be elite against the toughest schedule in the league.

Improve? Sureee, but elite? I'll wait until after the first four games to gauge.

 

I just finished talking to a friend (Raiders fan) on another site and he had some interesting things to say about Grove, his injuries and KC Joyner's numbers.

I asked if he had a more definitive list of Grove's injury history

Talking about Joyner's numbers, where Grove struggled and also part of our discussion on Satele

As suspected and pointed out earlier, his knee has been an issue for a few years now. A little more concerning is the fact that his shoulder injury hampered him longer than I had originally thought, as well as the blurb from an article (August '08) about how he was having trouble gaining confidence in his knee. Z also touched on Grove's struggles with stronger DT's/NT's and his breakdown in the passing game, which is something that has been mentioned here and also in Club by ck.

I go back to the Atlanta game where Grove missed key blocks and was knocked around, that wasn't a one game anomaly. Combine that with a player who just can't stay out on the field, he's only played more than 12 games once in his career, I don't understand how anybody could look at that objectively and put Grove in the top tier category. Sure elite players get beaten, but the frequency is much lower and the truly "top tier" players are reliable and durable, that doesn't describe Jake Grove no matter how you try to shine it up and put a bow on top.

At best the guy is a 2nd tier player who was playing in the wrong system for a spell, remember the Raiders also had a power running game before switching over. At worst, and more accurate IMO, he's a career underachiever who has a hard time staying healthy. I've read that he's a pretty good and vocal signal caller, but that does no good if the player is being pushed around, and it really doesn't do the team any good if the player is on the sidelines.

I hope his injuries are behind him, I hope he can be the anchor that we need for this offense, I just don't think he's the top tier player that some are claiming with an isolated stat.

 

3? I only count 2 (Grove and Thomas).

Money doesn't necessarily translate into production though, as the Bills can attest *cough* Dockery *cough* Walker *cough*.

 

Jake Grove is worth every penny L2G, what your list fails to mention is that he played last season after undergoing microfracture surgery to square away his knee.

He was clearly at 100% and played like it surpassing Jason Brown's performance by a comfortable margin.

 

Squaring away an injury in 2008 that occurred in 2005 doesn't fill me with confidence padre. I don't know how you can claim he's worth every penny when he hasn't played a snap as of yet to prove that his knee and other issues are a thing of the past.

I wouldn't call missing 4 games (due to a calf injury that was probably caused by him favoring his knee) 100%. Also the stat that has been thrown around is isolated to one aspect of the game and may not be a good representation, as my Raider friend pointed out, the responsibilities in zone blocking are a bit different and that stat jumped out at him immediately. It also contradicts the stat rankings that I posted earlier from Football Outsiders that listed the Raiders as #28 and #30 in the NFL when running the ball up the middle behind Grove. I'll say again, I don't know how to attribute individual success to a team statistic like rushing yards, does the credit go to the C who occupied his man or the G who pancaked his man, or the RB who use his vision and agility to weave through the traffic? It's not a stat that is easily attributed and doing so is not an exact science and there are many flaws in doing so.

I don't think that we're going to change each others mind, we're all set in our positions and this is something that we'll have to wait and see on. I hope he does well, I hope he can stay healthy, but his career is full of examples that tell a different story and I'm going to remain cautious until I see something different out on the field. I'm bowing out of the conversation for now, there is no use is repeating the same stuff over and over and debating the same points if it doesn't add anything new to the conversation. I'll agree to disagree, tip my hat to my fellow Phin fans and pray that my POV is wrong. I would be very happy to eat crow on this one, I just can't ignore example after example that tells me differently.