Brandon Scherff hurt again, helped off field

[e16bball]

10 hours ago, Woz said:

However, at the same time, they should be scrambling for some other solution, no?

I would have been scrambling for a solution months ago, given what we had on the roster, so I would definitely concur that they should (still) be scrambling now.

I know there’s concern about blocking guys like Christian and Martin with veterans when we want to evaluate them for the future — but if they can’t beat out street free agents for playing time, as 2nd/3rd year players, isn’t that an evaluation in itself? If Christian is a year from free agency and still can’t get on the field over 37-year-old Donald Penn, despite the obvious age/potential advantage he’d surely get in the decision-making, doesn’t that pretty much tell us all we need to know about him?

[Woz]

12 hours ago, e16bball said:

I would have been scrambling for a solution months ago, given what we had on the roster, so I would definitely concur that they should (still) be scrambling now.

I know there’s concern about blocking guys like Christian and Martin with veterans when we want to evaluate them for the future — but if they can’t beat out street free agents for playing time, as 2nd/3rd year players, isn’t that an evaluation in itself? If Christian is a year from free agency and still can’t get on the field over 37-year-old Donald Penn, despite the obvious age/potential advantage he’d surely get in the decision-making, doesn’t that pretty much tell us all we need to know about him?

If they had brought in street free agents and they stuck with Christian and Martin, then yes, I would say they made an evaluation (*). However, to the best of my knowledge they had not brought in any offensive linemen for evaluations in the past two weeks. If I missed that, please tell me who they brought in.

 

 

(*) Not one I would necessarily agree with, but at least they would have made a decision.

[e16bball]

I had written up a whole long post about my ideal plan for the future of the OL, but I lost it all when my dumb phone died. 

So the TL;DP (too long; didn’t post) version of all of it is as follows. 

Get Scherff back on the field ASAP and trade him for what you can get (late 3rd maybe?) at the deadline. Can’t pay top dollar when he can’t stay on the field.

Draft LT with the high 1st rounder, praying that Sewell is there for us. Would give a mega-contract to Bakhtiari or Stanley if they actually hit FA, but can’t imagine that happening.

Also pray that one of Martin/Ismael proves competent at LG. If you gotta be weak somewhere, might as well be LG (between Sewell and the next guy).

Sign Cory Linsley to play center. If the Packers have to pay Bakhtiari huge money, they might not be able to afford to keep Linsley. 

Draft an RG, perhaps with our high 3rd rounder. Shaping up to be a solid draft for interior OL talent, and I always like the play of drafting a college OT to kick inside to guard. 

Give Charles the chance to take the RT job. Think he could be a quality RT in this offense, and you’d also have Moses as quality depth or the starter of Charles doesn’t step up.

LT: Sewell

LG: Martin/Ismael

C: Linsley

RG: 3rd Round Rookie

RT: Charles/Moses

I think that’s a pretty reasonable OL, with some big upside. Assuming health, you’re solid at both tackle spots and center, and the guard spots have some upside and are, at the very least, extremely cheap. You’d certainly have cap room left for one other big FA splash and you’d also potentially have three other day 2 picks (our 2nd, SF’s 3rd, and perhaps a 3rd for Scherff) to hit other major needs. 

[e16bball]

1 hour ago, Woz said:

If they had brought in street free agents and they stuck with Christian and Martin, then yes, I would say they made an evaluation (*). However, to the best of my knowledge they had not brought in any offensive linemen for evaluations in the past two weeks. If I missed that, please tell me who they brought in.

(*) Not one I would necessarily agree with, but at least they would have made a decision.

I moreso meant if they had signed someone like Peters or Beachum or even Penn over the summer, and that player had won the starting spot over Christian — effectively “blocking” him from getting reps — that such failure to win the job over a veteran who didn’t have a job by mid-summer would constitute an evaluation of Christian. In essence, we would know enough about Christian at that point and there would be no real need to force him into regular season snaps to figure that out. 

At this point, I think Penn and Cordy Glenn are the only guys out there who we could reasonably hope might be able to come in off the street and provide an upgrade. Jared Veldheer, maybe, but it looks like he’s not serious about returning to the field. 

I am a little intrigued to see what happens with David Sharpe. They apparently thought highly enough of him to trade some value for him instead of letting him get cut and come available, so I’m wondering if they intended for him to be a consideration for one of the starting spots.