mitchell I think the jury is out. the reason being is he was drafted as a couple year project. he's only in year 2 and missed most of his rookie year with an illness. His knock was his size. he needs to bulk up. he's done well in pass protection except this past game but he's been awful in run blocking and was awful as a OG. If he can bulk up more and get stronger he could be a solid OT or at least a good swing backup which for a mid rounder ain't bad. I agree he shouldn't be relied on though. Warren is still possible. we'll get to see him start friday for the 1st time. becton is out 1-2 weeks. It was a mistake to let moses go, we didn't have the cap though but we should have made it work somehow. fant should have been kept as well. we shouldn't have signed brown. the issue is they both played well enough to chase a starting job and we had becton penciled in so we let moses go to keep fant then let fant go and signed brown. as far as lower tier lineman, he's tried they just couldn't stay healthy. or went to be a doctor lol. LDT was a good signing from him. herbig was good and is playing well with the steelers. schwietzer was a good backup pickup. he just got hurt. players like feeny and turner were bad (but turner was an a-rod buddy)
How did we not have the cap for Moses? He signed for $5 mill/year and we went and replaced that miss with Duane Brown for $10 million per year. Just like the statistical analysis post in the other thread I think you need to slow your fingers down when typing and actually think about your thoughts. Because a lot of it comes out as one long run on sentence with jumbled together nonsense and arrogance mixed in.
but he wasn't taking jones at 13 regardless. plus maybe pitt trades up to 12 then. it's all ifs and maybes but JD didn't like jones as much as you do. even if he did take jones you'd probably argue we "wasted a 1st and could have got dawaan in the 4th" thats why there is no winning with that mentality. you'll always find a reason to be upset and there will always be one that can be cherry picked in hindsight that makes you feel right. Listen I really liked howell coming out of the draft. he was originally slated as a 1st-2nd. then closer to the draft he was considered a 3rd maybe 4th. he fell to the 5th. I called him a better scrappier mayfield. when he fell I thought we should have taken him. zach was coming off a bad rookie year, bringing in another young QB couldn't hurt just in case. i'm not going to roast JD for not taking him. you cna't roast a guy for not following what millions of fans want who all want something different
we had fant and becton penciled in. moses wanted a starting job and left for one. we signed brown in august after both becton and fant got hurt. it was a mistake for sure. we should have gave moses the starting job and had fant/becton battle for the LT spot instead. we should have retained fant this year as well. they were good finds but your right we shouldn't have let them walk.
He did neither though, that's the problem. Nor got anyone good as a FA. Now we complain about injuries, but OT wasn't good to begin with. And Guards could have been patched with Ezra Cleveland for cheap when injuries happened so that we don't have to play total scrubs. The point is , there was a way to avoid this disaster. I just described the one that was obvious. If JD had another way, sure. But he didn't. This season's fiasco (baring a miracle) is on him.
OT was an issue heading into the season. every team has it's holes though and "issue spots" going into a season. outside of keeping fant, IDK what we could have really done different. FA wasn't full of OTs. they are in high demand with a low talent rate across the NFL. spotrac has bectons value right now at 13m/yr he's probably get that or more. cleveland isn't as good as tomlinson or AVT. he's a FA after this season. he was benched by minn then traded away. he's not really worth a conversation at this point. trading assets to patch a 4-6 team with a backup QB doesn't make sense. if we were 7-2 with rodgers and had these injuries you could make a case for bringing in a backup OG for 7 games due to injuries.
See this is what I’m talking about. He wasn’t benched by Minnesota. He was ruled out with a foot injury in back to back weeks. And by the way I agree with you in that I don’t see all the hullabaloo over the guy. I probably would’ve traded a 6th rounder for him and all but where there’s smoke, there’s fire. There’s something fishy about a seemingly decent offensive lineman being available tor that little. There’s also slight murmurs that the guy wants to play tackle and be paid like a tackle because he played there in college. https://m.startribune.com/vikings-p...econd-game/600315656/?clmob=y&c=n&clmob=y&c=n https://www.si.com/nfl/vikings/news/ezra-cleveland-ruled-out-dalton-risner-make-first-vikings-start
I read an article that said he was benched but it seems the article took liberties. he got hurt and lost his starting job to the backup so they traded him away. even he said "they gave up on me" so yeah he wasn't benched per say. it's why I hate reporting nowadays. can't really trust any sources. but he still lost his spot to his backup when he got hurt and missed some games and then was traded away. I don't know the hubub either. I pointed out when people were complaining that most of us here barely heard of the guy before the trade rumors. it's jsut any o-lineman people will jump at with a "we shoulda" without accounting for anything like is he good, does he fit the system, etc. teams typically don't trade away good players for peanuts.
He lost a spot to the guy we could have had too. Also, that does not mean he would not be a starter for us. Big reason why he is gone is because he is going to be a FA, and Minny got something back. But to repeat, he could have helped us. Again, I am not saying he is the savior. He is just an obvious example of what JD could have done to improve the team, when he did nothing at trading deadline with us desperately needing offensive help.
he could have helped us but one RG isn't fixing anything and JD wants his draft capital. FWIW he was playing in jax this past week. not sure why though and didn't really pay attention to how he did.
