FA Cupboard Thinning Out??

When he was hired, Steve Nichols and I were confused because he’s a poor fit for the ZB scheme. I’m hoping that he’s better for this approach.

We’ve got a lot of players in house. If we draft another group of OL payers, it suggests that perhaps some on the current roster, won’t be with us at the end of training camp. I could see two more – one OT, one OG, as probable. They could even go for more and add a center. It’s a good draft for that, too. We do need to develop a strong, deep line and that requires time.

Few players are like Clady and come in to produce in their first year. Even so – if we can obtain players who look like they fit the model that McX is working toward – and we don’t even really know that model yet – letting them develop for a year or more is fine. You never know, much like last season, when your injuries will be such that players need to come in and immediately step up to starter quality. It’s hard to do that, especially with the need for comfortable communication among OL players, but the alternative is what we saw from Polumbus last season. I doubt anyone is happy there, so getting an OT who we can go to if Harris’ injury lingers is just good sense. That even includes the possibility of taking one at 11. As fans, we don’t have access to trustworthy reports on player status, and that makes most of what we talk about just the best guesswork that we can make. IMO, if we go OT at 11, it only means that we don’t know yet on Harris, rather than, “Harris won’t go.” Can D’Anthony Baptiste go in his stead? Same answer – perhaps, but we don’t have the info yet.

We always carry two centers. They just offered Fry a futures contract, so they have some interest there. Sometimes one is a G/C like Hamilton, but you have to have a backup other than the longsnapper, whose skillset is completely different (I tend to doubt that Hamilton has a long term opportunity in Denver, but we’ll see). I believe that Hochstein is safe, Kuper generally did well until the end of the year, but he was flanked by players who weren’t doing their jobs well and that had to get difficult. McD stated that Olsen is coming along well and should compete for a slot – that could mean G or C, or just be offseason misdirection – I tend to take everything at this point with a shaker of salt.

The only thing that I’m fairly certain of is that we’ll be adding to the OL this draft. When and who will tell us a great deal more about how McX want the line to look in 2012 or so.