rugger8

In hindsight, yeah. But he was a top OT at the time, and not so old that we should have expected him to fall off like he has. He's only 30 right now. He reasonably should have been expected to continue his play and earn his contract.

Hey how do you think Schraeder would do if we took him out of space and moved him to Guard? Start getting Gono developed with some snaps. And then draft an OT fairly high, assuming Gono is just a depth/swing guy.

At the time he was looking for a new contract we were switching offensive coordinators. I said at the time that we should let him play out his current deal and see how he did under Sark. I thought at the time he was successful due to Shanahan.

Is it ok to want a bigger back AND improved OL play? Schraeder is looking like he's at the end of his career. So is Mack (but even though his play has slipped, he's still a top 10 OC). I think our OGs are in there with the assumption of better Center and RT play. We have some work to do in the off-season on our OL, but with our Defense so depleted, it has us passing all the time to keep pace scoring - which makes it much harder on the OL.

I remember a thread from back then that got into his stuff rate, and it was very low. No one is going to be perfect, but some backs can get a couple of yards 'on their own' or always seem to have the 'fall forward' trait, and Turner was one of those until his last season or two.

Since Julio doesn't allow touchdowns, maybe we should move him to Safety full time.

He's got Icy Hot™ on his hammy.

Thank you. The short of it is that we lost all the guys on defense who make other guys better.

I don't know whether he's the 'student of the game' that Allen is, but I do think he has the ability and room to grow.

I would absolutely take a 5th for Trufant right now.

This is really the heart of the post, and could be applied to any of the remaining players. The remaining starters are trying to cover for the new guys, who are inexperienced, and less talented over all. Add to that that the brains of the defense are no longer on the field (Allen primarily and Jones secondarily), and they are just lost. We would have been ok missing any one of those guys (except maybe Allen), but missing all four of them - and all through the middle of the field - is forcing those other guys to do too much, and mostly outside their comfort zone/ability. The one guy I really expected more from is Trufant - he's really the only one out there who is truly doing less than I expected of them. We're missing the guys who make other guys better.

When Allen went down, I 'knew' the season was over. It's not his individual play-making ability that defines him, but how he put this defense in a position to succeed. Kazee could have replaced - well enough - what Neal brings. But Allen is a fantastic 'keeper, and the brains of the defense. When we lost him we went from struggling with some individual match-ups to everything being a disorganized mess.

Then I don't know who you're leaving out.

4 best players with Grady out now.

Free could be a June 1 cut next year. I actually think Trufant is a possibility. Julio... I have mixed feelings about trading Julio. But I don't like arguing to build from the inside out, and then trying to justify one of the biggest WR contracts.