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I'm curious if we're counting on Duke to start at C, or if they've got other ideas (Lecharles Bentley, etc). Is Duke versatile enough to make a good LG, or is he a die-cast Center?
I'd be pumped if we signed Bentley, Duke plays well at LG, and we use our 2nd round pick to nab a LT (assuming Brick is gone at #8).
Wake up, brush your teeth, and get ready for a day of hating the Dolphins. Or the Pats? How to choose?
I'm curious if we're counting on Duke to start at C, or if they've got other ideas (Lecharles Bentley, etc). Is Duke versatile enough to make a good LG, or is he a die-cast Center?
I'd be pumped if we signed Bentley, Duke plays well at LG, and we use our 2nd round pick to nab a LT (assuming Brick is gone at #8).
Where would Mike Gandy go? I think Gandy deserves a spot on our line.
But I'm guessing you meant that Gandy would stay at LT until our 2nd round LT pick would be ready in 1-2 years?
No lineman coming out of college is ready to start their rookie season at Left Tackle! Unless Gandy is replaced by a Free Agent, he will start there next year. Best you can expect from a rookie Tackle is for him to start on the right side.
No lineman coming out of college is ready to start their rookie season at Left Tackle! Unless Gandy is replaced by a Free Agent, he will start there next year. Best you can expect from a rookie Tackle is for him to start on the right side.
Excellent point.
Even the very best LTs in the game for the most part did not start until at least 1/3 to 1/2 of the way through their rookie seasons. Hypothetically, if the Bills were fortunate enough to have D.Ferguson drop to them and they drafted him, he might be able to take over as the starter at LT somewhere around the middle of the season, if he is able to bulk up enough by then, because he is such a rare physical specimen and was such a dominant player in college. But, even then, the Bills would need to have someone to "hold down" the position for him until that point in the season when he would be ready. And, Gandy could do that. Just about every other OT in this draft is going to need at least a year before he is ready to take over the starting job for an NFL team.
Also, while some teams like to switch their offensive linemen around because they want them to be more versatile, there are still a lot of NFL teams and offensive line coaches who do not like to start out the tackles that they have earmarked for their starting LT job on right side and then flip-flop them later on because the players are often more comfortable playing on one side rather than the other or get confused, which the coaches don't want and, depending on the offense, the primary assignments of one side of the offensive line may be different than on the other side of the line, requiring the players to be better at different sets of skills (ie, a "left-handed" running game like KC has requires players who are more mobile on the right side of the line than on the left and, if say they were grooming a young OT to take over from Willie Roaf, he would have to concentrate on doing different things playing opposite Roaf on the right side of their line which would take away from the time he could spend learning from Roaf how to do what Roaf does and what the team will, ultimately, want him to be able to do). It depends on the system, but one can't assume that a guy who has played primarily on the left side can automatically play on the right side, especially when he is still learning the ropes. While it should be an easier transition to make for a LT to play RT than for a RT to move to LT, because LTs have to be quicker and more athletic, that doesn't mean that every guy can do it and play well enough to merit a starting job over someone who is accustomed to playing the right side all of the time.
Those who do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat it. And, thus it was that they surrendered their freedom; not with a bang, but without even a whimper.
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