Brandon Thorn was tweeting the last pre-season game and said just on play so far it would be hard to keep him off the field, really likes what he's seen.
So who are the lines that could possibly be worse than the Pats?
Okorafor and Sow on the left side is worrisome at best and catastrophic at worst. I feel good about the right side though. Decent chance that the right side holds up absent injury.
I think Sow is acceptable, as to Okorafor... haven't seen him on the left any yet, so maybe he's a lot worse, but he's not bad on the right, we have plenty of evidence of that from his PIT time bet they wish they still had him honestly their tackles look worse than ours (part of that is Fautanu is hurt), Jones wasn't any better than Okorafor last year and he's been terrible in preseason, and Dan Moore Jr is basically Lowe but maybe worse.
Acceptable is a great word and kinda leads into my overall take on those guys. Okorafor shouldn't necessarily be an abject failure on the left, nor should playing Sow there. But even big fans wouldn't call them strong. So having two guys next to each other on the more important size whose likely ceiling is Acceptable still leaves a lot of floor to levels much lower than that. If either Okorafor or Sow were playing next to someone stronger, I'd have fewer concerns. That doesn't mean that I would want to mix and match with Wallace/Onwenu--we may as well have one strong side--but I just feel so much better about each of those guys than I do Oks/Sow.
The Giants, if Thomas is healthy, have an OK line with one of the game’s best at LT. Eluemunor is better than Okorafor/Lowe. Their interior line isn’t great but Runyan and Schmitz are probably fairly similar to Sow/Robinson
Just a nit - barely worth mentioning, given how deep into the NFL OL ranks we're diving - but IMO, based on his time in NE, Eluemunor isn't better than anybody who might start in NE this year.
He's a weird one, he has 6 years in the league, probably 3 are between terrible and bad, he was kind of okay his last year here got him a deal in LV, he was bad year 1, then surprisingly pretty decent the last 2 years. Could be a late bloomer, or could just have been situation and he turns back into a pumpkin.
He’s become a passable starter. Miles ahead of what Lowe was last year and probably better than Okorafor as well.
Just love this: when another 6’5” 320lb offense lineman says you are strong to the point of making HIM jealous, that’s proper hardcore.
I mean, this is all fate at this point. In 2001, they started off on the road against Cincy. 2024 week 1 opponent? Cincy on the road.
I certainly hope he is. They're going to take it slow with him, though, which I think is prudent.
I feel exactly the opposite. I can't believe people want to see the most important player on the team not play football. Because he might get scared? Might be timid? Might get hurt? The fans might be mean? What if he's actually really good? What if he doesn't get scared? Hell, what if he's not good? What if he does get scared or hurt by the mean fans? Don't we want to know that before next year when we'll obviously have a totally competent OL? Maybe he's not Mac Jones? Maybe he's Jared Allen? We know what Brissett is. If Maye is bad, you can always take him out. If that's too much for him to handle, he was never going to be successful anyway. If he gets hurt, he gets hurt. QBs with the best OL get hurt. It's almost always a fluky play. I guess I just don't see the downside to knowing if your #3 overall pick is actually going to work or if you need to keep trying.
The downside is that a guy who may have been successful ends up failing. If you put a young qb behind a terrible line when he’s still learning, it could reduce his odds of panning out
I'm not really buying the story line, but I think j-man assumes that the Pats would have taken a tackle with the extra pick they gained by trading down for Nix.
Tonight was about as bad as an OL can play. The pressures and sacks weren't any worse than last year's average game, but they took 174 penalties and still looked that bad. Pretty fucking embarrassing.
Exactly, and on top of that, there is zero evidence anyone can point to that sitting a guy hurts him outside of delaying his game reps, but Maye is still only 21. We also have seen countless QBs we can point to playing too early can get them hurt(eg Carr with an awful Oline) or ruin their game(eg Darnold seeing ghosts). I want Maye around for the long haul, and I'd rather him sit for a few weeks with no harm done and also let him adapt to being a Pro over throwing him in there because he'd make the loses more exciting
Yeah, but I'd rather not pointlessly risk his getting SMITHEREENS'd by a line that is totally fucked like it is right now. They're not going to transform into the 1990s Cowboys OL, but David Andrews and Friends will at least find some semblance of coherence a month or so into the season. I'd rather they work it out - at least a little - prior to throwing "Drake Maye No Matter What" into the fray.
I guess, but by that logic who starts week 1 if Jacoby is legit hurt? Zappe? Milton?
Not a good argument for playing him in Week 1 of a season where the team will be closer to the bottom of the league than the top. I think it would be a mistake to abandon teaching the kid the right way to do things in the hope of maybe being a little better in the early weeks.
The shoulder thing that knocked Jacoby out last night certainly could be a multi-week thing. I think if he's out week 1, I think it'll be the Drake under center.
Is the OL going to be better week 5 though? What improvements will they make between week 1 and week 5? Especially given that there's a reasonable chance that one of the starting OL gets hurt in that time frame (because stuff happens).
