Offensive Line: It's NOT the Players. It's the Scheme

[*bengalfan74*]

(10-12-2020, 01:53 PM)SunsetBengal Wrote: While all of those guys have performed miserably in a Bengals uniform, they were each outstanding players at the college level.  Sure, we can write off one, maybe two as just unlucky draft selections, but that is a lot of guys drafted that have not even come close to achieving their expected potential.  Now, we have Jonah Williams, a top 10 selection at LT, who seems to be having difficulty knowing who he's supposed to be picking up on any given play.

Now, it's also been well talked about on here that the OL coming out of college these days, particularly the Tackles, are just not "game ready".  So all teams are struggling to find and develop new starting talent at T in the NFL.  What I'm having trouble wrapping my head around, is why we are struggling so hard to find a pair of competent Guards? Guard has literally got to the most basic, fundamental position in Football.  You have to really have a jacked up blocking scheme, in order to have college educated Guards not knowing who to pick up, repeatedly.

Now, with the talent new talent pool issue out in the open;  How is that other teams are able to put competent, cohesive OLs out there?  Sure, 3 OL coaches in 4 seasons isn't helping things, but there needs to be a greater commitment from the organization as a whole.




Yep, part of it is players.  But a much larger contributing factor to the crappy OL is coaching, talent evaluation, and roster budget management.

Right

Here's the thing I don't get and probably never will ? You hear people saying they're young, inexperienced, and so on.

The interior Oline has one job, plug the middle. It's not rocket science ! And they've been doing it, in most cases for several years counting HS and College. It's not like they're being forced to stand on one hand, read a book while upside down with the other and still block.

Yet time and time again you see free rushers firing right up our gut virtually untouched. And our linemen back pedaling and blocking no one. 

And then standing there looking like they have no idea what to do. Isn't blocking 101 instructions to default to taking the inside rushers first ? How do they just stand there and do nothing ? "Oh I'm supposed to block" ? looks on their face.

I just don't get how they have such complicated instructions that blocking gets passed over for whatever they're being told to do ?