We Should Extend Scherff and The Greek Now!

[Skins212689]

2 hours ago, Slateman said:

Another guard? 

Better question: If Scherff is so good, why dont they just  move their best interior lineman to the other side? Thats why investing in a premium guard is a waste. They're too easy to scheme against. 

Gotta have good across the line, not just in spots.

 

Agree to Disagree. You need a line to protect the QB. I wouldn't have taken Scherff at 5 with Willams still on the board, but to act like he hasn't made a difference would be foolish. Maybe they didn't move Scherff to the left side becasue they had no one to replace him on the right.

[turtle28]

5 hours ago, Skins212689 said:

Agree to Disagree. You need a line to protect the QB. I wouldn't have taken Scherff at 5 with Willams still on the board, but to act like he hasn't made a difference would be foolish. Maybe they didn't move Scherff to the left side becasue they had no one to replace him on the right.

As @e16bball has explained in the past RG is a more important position than LG. That’s usually the strong side when you’re running the ball and having a great RG is more important than having a great LG.

Perhaps E can come in and explain it better but he and I had this discussion earlier this year and he convinced me, which isn’t easy to do.

[Skins212689]

5 hours ago, turtle28 said:

As @e16bball has explained in the past RG is a more important position than LG. That’s usually the strong side when you’re running the ball and having a great RG is more important than having a great LG.

Perhaps E can come in and explain it better but he and I had this discussion earlier this year and he convinced me, which isn’t easy to do.

So maybe you can answer his question. Why haven't they moved Scherff to the left side than? 

[e16bball]

6 hours ago, turtle28 said:

As @e16bball has explained in the past RG is a more important position than LG. That’s usually the strong side when you’re running the ball and having a great RG is more important than having a great LG.

Perhaps E can come in and explain it better but he and I had this discussion earlier this year and he convinced me, which isn’t easy to do.

The big thing is that most protection schemes call for sliding the protection left — to the QB’s blindside and the side where most of the elite edge pass-rushers usually set up shop. What that means is that generally speaking, especially when you have an elite LT (as we do), your LG gets some help from the center in pass protection. Your RG gets left alone much more frequently, so he needs to be able to hold up one-on-one in that phone booth area. 

That’s why you see most of the elite OGs in the league — especially the well-rounded ones who aren’t just maulers— used on the right side. Zack Martin, David DeCastro, Marshal Yanda, Scherff obviously, Kevin Zeitler, Brandon Brooks, Shaq Mason, Trai Turner, Kyle Long, Laurent Duvernay-Tardif, Larry Warford, Justin Pugh, Jahri Evans, etc. all play on the right side. You don’t see many star-level players at LG, most of them are there because they can run-block and can hold up in pass pro if you give them some help (much like the guy we’ve plugged in at LG for the last couple years).

[e16bball]

1 hour ago, Skins212689 said:

So maybe you can answer his question. Why haven't they moved Scherff to the left side than? 

I think Slate’s question was if Scherff is so good, why wouldn’t opposing teams move their best defensive lineman to get away from him? Not asking about moving Scherff — because as I’ve explained many times, pretty much no one would move a great RG to LG, just as they wouldn’t move a great LT to RT. 

 

As to Slate’s question, teams probably do that to some degree. But while it’s easier to move a DL around than an OL, I still don’t think it’s that easy to just slide a 3-tech DT or 5-tech DE to the other side at will. They still have certain moves and techniques that they use, and it’s not as easy as you’d think to just reverse them.

A 3-tech DT who typically plays on the defensive left might be accustomed to attacking a RG’s right (outside) shoulder with his initial punch and then ripping his left arm through under the RG’s left (inside) shoulder for a swim move type inside pass rush. Have to totally reverse that to do the same move on the other side. Or he might be used to the double team (from the center) coming from his right side, so on run plays he would tend to anchor with his left foot back and rotate his torso to the right  in order to absorb the double team and hold his ground. Have to reverse that if you’re on the opposite side. Plus they’re used to working in relation with other DL — a simple DE/DT twist works in reverse on the opposite side, and it’s especially different when you’re working with a different player. And while the good/great ones probably can do it, I don’t think it’s quite as easy as most fans might think it is  

[ASIDE: For a comparison that more people may be able to relate to, think about the difference between a right-handed layup and a left-handed layup in basketball. Your dribble approach is different, your vision of the hoop is reversed, your footwork as you approach the basket is different, you jump off the opposite foot, you obviously hold the ball in the opposite (weaker) hand, your strong hand is there just for support and can’t get involved in shooting it, you’re raising up the left side of your body as you go up instead of the right, etc. In other words, your body mechanics are totally different just because you’re approaching the hoop on the opposite side.]

Plus, moving a great interior DL to the opposite side might make his life easier — but it also makes Scherff’s life easier. A weaker interior DL to work against means he can dominate in the run game on the right side and we can do most of our meaningful work on that side, away from the opposing star DL. And just cut him on the back side over and over while the action went away from him. Plus, we could fully trust Scherff to hold up in pass pro against a weak interior DL, so we could slide protection to the star player they moved and have LG/C fully neutralize him on any 4-or 5-man rush. Where we might have felt a need to help Scherff with the star DL sometimes, leaving LG alone and vulnerable, now we could just help LG on pretty much every pass play. 

Anyway, I understand the point. But I think in reality it’s a little trickier than just “switch Fletcher Cox to RDT so he can go against Lauvao instead of Scherff.” There are a lot of subsequent adjustments that would take place that would not only help to neutralize the impact of that move, but that might even help us capitalize on it to some degree.

[e16bball]

With all that said, though, I have to say that I’m pretty torn about what to do with Scherff.

My gut instinct is to say that you never let star talent walk out the door if you can help it, that paying elite players and filling in around them with young cheap options is the right formula. That spreading your money out and giving it to lots of “solid” players (instead of having some true star players and some question marks) is a nice way to ensure that you have a “solid” (8-9 win) team. 

But like Slate is saying, can a guard really be a true super-impactful star type player? Look at the Jags with Norwell — give him a big contract, just about the biggest one ever for a G, and did their offense go to the next level? No, in fact it’s worse this year. Much worse, actually, even in the run game where he is supposed to excel. And it’s not like the Panthers are suffering without him. They lost the highest paid guard in history and their offense is actually better so far this year. Cleveland and Oakland have both had two highly paid, highly regarded OGs on their offenses for the last couple years. Hasn’t done much for them. 

I like Scherff a lot. And I’d rather pay him $11-12M than sign some mediocre veteran OG for $5-6M and use the surplus on mediocre veterans/depth like the Skins have often tended to do. But if we’re making a big money splash on a player, shouldn’t it be for a more game-changing position, like an elite pass-rusher or WR or even CB?

To put it another way: if we’re gonna go high-priced at one or two of those positions of need and cheap at the rest, wouldn’t OG always be the last choice to spend on? Wouldn’t you take the star pass-rusher or WR and take your chances at OG? I think you’d have to. So I think my inclination would be to try to wait and see if I could use that money on a DeMarcus Lawrence or a Jadeveon Clowney or maybe an AJ Green before I committed it to a Brandon Scherff. 

[Skins212689]

I didn't read that long *** paragraph for a simple answer. Like i said who would you replace him with, but you have No Answer but another guard. It's not guaranteed we can just get another All Pro RG like Scherff. If it's so hard to find a elite RG oppose to DE's or DT's why would they let Scherff go? Makes no sense to me, unless your ready to start ready to making excuses for the poor protection and run blocking that will come after that.

So you sign Green and Clowney, but let Scherff walk. We have no one to replace Scherff talents!

[Woz]

On 11/18/2018 at 1:01 PM, Skins212689 said:

I didn't read that long *** paragraph for a simple answer.

But you should.

Guys like @e16bball don't generally write long, thoughtful analyses for their own health(*). They're trying to not only say "this is what I think is correct" but why they think it is correct. It's easy to say "no, the Redskins should/should not do X" and leave it at that. To explain your rationale, as well as why you may be wrong or why it would not be correct in all cases, in a clear fashion ... that's hard to do.

I get that at times (especially if you are on a mobile device) your eyes scan over posts. Heck, I read every post on this forum, and even I skim from time to time. However, if someone goes through the effort of giving a long-ish form argument, I'm going to give them my respect and a piece of my time to see what they say. I might completely disagree (and very likely if I do, I'll write a just as long response), but it makes me a better poster and fan to work through their argument.

In this particular case, I think e16 makes a compelling point: while we don't have a quality replacement for Scherff right now, you aggressively plan for him leaving (read: draft at least two guards in this draft (one starter, one backup), and probably another in 2019) and use the cap savings to invest in a more "elite" position. Now, if you can get Scherff at a relative discount, then keep him. However, I don't think that will be possible.

 

 

 

(*) I started to include myself in this category, and then realized that, no, I just like to blather on incessantly.

[MikeT14]

4 minutes ago, Woz said:

(*) I started to include myself in this category, and then realized that, no, I just like to blather on incessantly.

Live shot cut to Mrs. Woz

[Woz]

16 minutes ago, MikeT14 said:

Live shot cut to Mrs. Woz

I will get her take on this tonight.

Sufficed to say, I think the call will at worst stand as called on the field.

[turtle28]

On 11/18/2018 at 1:01 PM, Skins212689 said:

I didn't read that long *** paragraph for a simple answer. Like i said who would you replace him with, but you have No Answer but another guard. It's not guaranteed we can just get another All Pro RG like Scherff. If it's so hard to find a elite RG oppose to DE's or DT's why would they let Scherff go? Makes no sense to me, unless your ready to start ready to making excuses for the poor protection and run blocking that will come after that.

So you sign Green and Clowney, but let Scherff walk. We have no one to replace Scherff talents!

We won’t even be able to sign those guys bc their teams aren’t going to let their All-Pro talents walk either.

I’ve always been a proponent of keeping your own drafted or signed UDFA players who have earned a 2nd contract and Scherff has. 

Ive especially been this way since the Redskins didn’t keep Ryan Clark.

[turtle28]

@e16bball The reason the Jags offense isn’t as good this year is because Fournette is injured and Marquise Lee got injured. Those are arguably their two best offensive players and they’ve missed them basically all season.

Also, Cam Robinson and Brandon Linder are now on IR as well as their TE Austin Seferian-Jenkins.

[MikeT14]

Don't they still have Blake Bortles ?

[turtle28]

4 hours ago, MikeT14 said:

Don't they still have Blake Bortles ?

Yes, but you can get by with him if your playmakers and two of your best OL are healthy, if they’re not, you can’t.

They did almost go/and should’ve gone to the Super Bowl last year with Blake as their QB, but that’s when those guys were healthy... now they’re not.

[Woz]

8 hours ago, turtle28 said:

We won’t even be able to sign those guys bc their teams aren’t going to let their All-Pro talents walk either.

I’ve always been a proponent of keeping your own drafted or signed UDFA players who have earned a 2nd contract and Scherff has. 

Ive especially been this way since the Redskins didn’t keep Ryan Clark.

The question is: at what price? Is there a price where you say "thank you for your time and service, but we're not paying that?"