Mid-August: An Offensive Line Discussion

Pretty happy w/ James so far. Not giddy, but apparently he's been decent.

Agreed. James has looked good so far. He will get a stiffer test vs Ninkovich, Williams and Houston when the season starts. After that it's Tuck and Matthews. He better be ready.

"GMJohnson wrote:

Agreed. James has looked good so far. He will get a stiffer test vs Ninkovich, Williams and Houston when the season starts. After that it's Tuck and Matthews. He better be ready.

I'll be looking forward to seeing how he does. He's an easy guy to root for.

Another thing to remember is that defensive linemen are almost always ahead of the offense early in the year. So I wouldn't count out Thomas just yet, because any of our linemen would have struggled in his position last night. Of course, there's no excuse for looking THAT BAD, but you sort of expect that in pre-season. Look what our defensive line did...was it six sacks total?

To me, the real question is, "Are we better off today than we were last December?" I honestly don't know, but I believe that we are.

If we can get average play from the OL I think our skill guys and staff will be good enough to give us an above average unit overall. I'm not expecting a major improvement in run blocking, we have mostly finesse guys at this point, I do think the pass pro will be much improved though.

I don't mind if we have to open the season with Colledge and Satele as starters. They are savvy veterans who at least should do a decent job of keeping RT17 from being some defense's punching bag.
I am only seriously concerned with Dallas Thomas. Sure we can say he was going up against one of if not the very best DT in the league, and McCoy abuses most of his opponents. Last week, TB played Jax, and McCoy went up against a relatively unknown RG named Jacques McClendon, who coincidentally is also out of Tennessee, and his PFF rating was only 2.9, while McClendon was a -2.3. All the excuses we heard from the Dallas Thomas apologist(s) could just as well have pertained to Jax and McClendon, yet the latter was able to relatively hold his own against the great McCoy, while Thomas played as if he'd spent the night before at a titty bar getting lap dances and doing several dozen Jager shots.

"77FinFan wrote:

I'll be looking forward to seeing how he does. He's an easy guy to root for.

James has the 2nd best pass blocking rating among all OTs as per PFF with a 3.0. The only OT ahead of him is Eric Pears of Buffalo with a 4.2. Pears has played 119 snaps in 3 games compared to James' 80 snaps in 2.

It's time for Thomas to go fishing with Al Nieri. He's just terrible.

Anyone who is seriously calling the Dolphin OL solid or average is living in a fairy tale.

The OL is bad, and Pouncey won't be the saviour.

I watched every game Daryn Colledge played in last year and I can promise you that if he stays on this team and takes significant snaps he will greatly disappoint you.

Dolphins need a few guys who can actually run block.

"ckparrothead wrote:

They should get moving on an Albert-Smith-Satele-Turner-James line now, let them get comfortable with one another, then sub in Pouncey when healthy.

Dallas Thomas was a liability in the FIRST preseason game. He was an outright disaster in the second. And Daryn Colledge has not been much better.

This---100%. Smith might improve our run blocking. and Thomas is a complete liability. I'd rather struggle with the rookie Turner and hope he improves than stick with Thomas knowing he won't improve. If Garner could ever stay healthy, I'd say give him a shot at RG, but he's too injury prone, prefer to keep him at backup.

"ckparrothead wrote:

They should get moving on an Albert-Smith-Satele-Turner-James line now, let them get comfortable with one another, then sub in Pouncey when healthy.

Dallas Thomas was a liability in the FIRST preseason game. He was an outright disaster in the second. And Daryn Colledge has not been much better.

this should have been the group from jump, why they have bums like Dallas Thomas and Colledge on the field is beyond me, you don't give a guy 5.5 million to sit behind inferior players.

"LBsFinest wrote:

this should have been the group from jump, why they have bums like Dallas Thomas and Colledge on the field is beyond me, you don't give a guy 5.5 million to sit behind inferior players.

If Smith was playing like a stud guard (i.e. earning his paycheck) then there would have been no doubt he'd be starting. The fact that they are trying guys like Thomas and Colledge means Smith wasn't blowing anyone away and certainly not making the decision easy.

The pass blocking was not bad (other than getting blown up by a great DT). The run blocking atrocious.

But, I also like the lineup mentioned at the start.

I agree about Turner being a better option for the season than Thomas but what we don't see is how many mistakes Turner makes in practice - and, fearing big mistakes a wonder whether Philbin will be afraid of using Turner in the starting lineup because of his inexperience?

Would have been interesting to see Turner go up against McCoy.

"LBsFinest wrote:

this should have been the group from jump, why they have bums like Dallas Thomas and Colledge on the field is beyond me, you don't give a guy 5.5 million to sit behind inferior players.

Yeah, its just dumb to give young players a chance in preseason. Stupid coaches acting like preseason is for development.

"MrClean wrote:

.....while Thomas played as if he'd spent the night before at a titty bar getting lap dances and doing several dozen Jager shots.

Hmmmm....maybe that's exactly what happened, and he'll be a total beast with a good night's sleep :pity:

Dallas Thomas made it easy on the coaches to put Turner or Smith in there. At this point I wouldn't be surprised if he's cut when the rosters are trimmed to 75.

I guess that's why he couldn't see the field last year even with the turmoil this OL went through.

Title of this thread should be "The Annual Mid-August: An Offensive Line Discussion". Seems like this is a discussion we have had at least every year for the last 10 or so.

The thing is, this group, whoever they end up being, has to learn to together and build some continuity among themselves. Because of the fact that we have have a totally different starting five from last, or any other year, there will be games like this one was at times. Looking at Thomas, while he certainly did not have a good game, what was the real root cause. Was he supposed to get help at times ?? Was he in the right place or did he simply move to the wrong spot that he was suppose to be in to engage his blocks ?? Were his woes due to his inability or due to the lack of continuity in the OL in general ?? Was it simply coaching errors ?? I'm not good enough of an OL evaluator and neither are most of us here to make that determination with 100% certainty (with respect to CK and a few others that likely have better evaluation skills than most fans). I am like most here, that want them to 'pick five guys and go with it' so that they can begin that process of building some continuity. However, my guess is that that they simply haven't determined who those 'best five' guys are yet. And from my untrained eye, Thomas looks to be outside of that group, but....

"Ohio Fanatic wrote:

If Smith was playing like a stud guard (i.e. earning his paycheck) then there would have been no doubt he'd be starting. The fact that they are trying guys like Thomas and Colledge means Smith wasn't blowing anyone away and certainly not making the decision easy.

In fairness to Smith, they moved him to C to initially try and replace Mike Pouncey. Then signed Daryn Colledge, who I'm assuming is the 2014 Philbin Pet Project (think Eric Steinbach in 2012), and added Samson Satele. While he may not have been all that impressive from the get go, that's playing against a stacked deck, relatively speaking, IMO. I think at this point the game film *should* speak for itself.

"Larryfinfan wrote:

Title of this thread should be "The Annual Mid-August: An Offensive Line Discussion". Seems like this is a discussion we have had at least every year for the last 10 or so.

The thing is, this group, whoever they end up being, has to learn to together and build some continuity among themselves. Because of the fact that we have have a totally different starting five from last, or any other year, there will be games like this one was at times. Looking at Thomas, while he certainly did not have a good game, what was the real root cause. Was he supposed to get help at times ?? Was he in the right place or did he simply move to the wrong spot that he was suppose to be in to engage his blocks ?? Were his woes due to his inability or due to the lack of continuity in the OL in general ?? Was it simply coaching errors ?? I'm not good enough of an OL evaluator and neither are most of us here to make that determination with 100% certainty (with respect to CK and a few others that likely have better evaluation skills than most fans). I am like most here, that want them to 'pick five guys and go with it' so that they can begin that process of building some continuity. However, my guess is that that they simply haven't determined who those 'best five' guys are yet. And from my untrained eye, Thomas looks to be outside of that group, but....

coaches will tell ya that they expect a player like Thomas to get beat if he's going up against a player like McCoy, that goes for all players, their gonna get beat physically from time to time in the NFL, what they can't stand is the mental mistakes, without knowing what was going on in the trenches if he was supposed to have help, we have what we can see and that was consistent physical domination, to a degree that's hard to justify playing time regardless if their weren't mental mistakes going on..it creates doubt as to what level of player he can go up against and be sufficient.

"RoninFin4 wrote:

In fairness to Smith, they moved him to C to initially try and replace Mike Pouncey. Then signed Daryn Colledge, who I'm assuming is the 2014 Philbin Pet Project (think Eric Steinbach in 2012), and added Samson Satele. While he may not have been all that impressive from the get go, that's playing against a stacked deck, relatively speaking, IMO. I think at this point the game film *should* speak for itself.

I get that. but (personally) without knowing what kind of blocking scheme St Louis was using, I'm hesitant to rely on just past game film. Maybe it was a similar scheme, and if it was, then I agree with you.

I think it is going to be tough for this OL without Pouncey at center. Satele is adequate as a replacement for now, but there is a reason he didn't get much attention as a free agent. Hopefully he can play effective football until Pouncey is healthy enough to return to the lineup.

I watched the game on the NFL network last night and it was quite clear that Thomas is certainly no upgrade from Jerry. He was totally manhandled against the Bucs and I just don't see him ever being a starting caliber lineman in the NFL. I think Smith needs to start the season at RG in an effort to give Turner more time to make the adjustment to playing guard in the NFL.

Colledge appears to be okay at the LG position, but he is what he is and that appears to be a very average offensive lineman in the NFL.

The strength of the OL, until Pouncey returns appears to be at the offensive tackle position. Albert should be a major upgrade from last year and while James will probably suffer through the rookie learning curve this year, I think he could end up being a solid long term answer at the RT position.

I don't see a lot to offer from the backups on the OL. There appear to be a number of mediocre to below average linemen behind the starters. If there are a number of injuries on the OL during the regular season and the backups are forced to play. The OL will once again be a major concern for this team.

Overall, I think this line will be better is pass protection than last year, but I have not been impressed at all in their run blocking. This unit continues to be the weakest unit on the offense and it appears that adding better players on this unit will still be a priority in the 2015 draft.

Armando Salguero ‏@ArmandoSalguero 53s
Shelly Smith is getting first-team right guard snaps today.

While I think that's great, I'd prefer Smith at LG & Turner at RG. Anything is better than Dallas Thomas though.

Daryn Colledge apparently is untouchable.

He's Joe Philbin's binky.

"ckparrothead wrote:

Daryn Colledge apparently is untouchable.

He's Joe Philbin's binky.

Yup. It's a major issue I have with Philbin (among MANY others). It's the same as Sherman last year. If you're one of "his guys" he can't see their issues.
At least Thomas looks to have been demoted.