O-lines

[Barrett]

OK, I'm far from an expert when it comes to O-lines, I basically judge a line based on number of sacks allowed, or how much time it looks like a qb has. However, I feel like alot of the difference between good and bad lines isn't so much the individuals in the line, but how the line works together. Everyone is gonna let a defender through now and again, the question as I see it is whether someone else will help out and pick that defender up before he gets to the qb. Basically, it seems to me that alot of what makes a line good is how well they work together, which often means how long they've played together. Indy's O-line is basically the same as years ago when their offense was awful and Peyton got sacked every other play, and now they're considered maybe the best line in the NFL. Cincy's line was considered awful a couple years ago too, and now they're also a highly regarded unit. I don't think that the individual players became more skilled, I think that they've developed together and now make a great unit. My point is that I think that part of the reason that Buffalo's line has been so awful isn't because the individual players have been awful, but because we have a different line every year, and we don't give the players a chance to develop as a unit. I think that instead of trying to trade premier impact players for bigger and better linemen (as people are suggesting we do with Clements), we need to get together a core group, and let them develop together. Obviously this doesn't happen overnight, but changing our starting line every year (or even every week sometimes) clearly isn't helping. In fact, from what I can tell, when teams go through 'rebuilding' stages, it tends to be the O-line that they rebuild. From my experience, teams that get together an o-line and stick with it, get better offensively every year in direct correlation with the line developing. Palmer and Manning gradually got better as their lines developed, and on the other hand Rothlisberger was great his first year since he came in to an already well developed and well established line. Let's get a good group together, and have some faith, and not change the line every time there's a sack.