Falcons: Mike Smith may shake up O-line

[Radical]

(09-28-2011 12:36 PM)Paulitik Wrote:  It seems like you are arguing that Mularkey's offense is so great, that it can turn a "shitty QB" like Tommy Maddox into a superstar, implying that Matt Ryan should be the master of it. I would argue that Matt has mastered it in the no-huddle, but it's not nearly as effective anytime else, because it looks like Mularky micro-manages it the rest of the time.

It didn't turn him into a superstar at all, but it was effective with limited talent. My overall point is that an offense is only as good as the players executing it. An OC can't make chicken salad out of chicken shit. You can see this repeated over and over in the league on both sides of the ball. Mike Martz, Jon Gruden, Brian Billick, Josh McDaniels, you name it. You don't have the talent, you don't succeed.

For us, coming into the year, we're loaded everywhere but at the offensive line position, which is cripplingly bad. The offensive line right now is bottom 5 in terms of performance. Before, all you had to worry about was the usual Baker fail, but now we're seeing inconsistency from the C and RG position, and quite frankly it's too much to overcome. Look at the Bucs game, and Turner was hit at or behind the LOS on EVERY play. How about the Clayborn sack/fumble play.

I-formation, Kelly in at FB aligned left of the formation. Ryan drops back and Kelly runs a chip on the DE on Baker before running off to the flat, and Turner goes out to the middle. Ryan is absolutely leveled just as he reaches his drop-back, with 3 defensive out of four breaking through on the play. The C, LG, and LT all just got man handled. How about the other one, shotgun with four WRs spread out, where Ryan gets a bad snap, and he's blasted before he even realizes he doesn't have the football. They literally walked through the offensive line.

What is the solution for that? There isn't one. There is no work around for losing that bad in the trenches other than the offensive line stepping up. No combination of routes, no QB, no gameplan, etc. is going to make-up for that kind of offensive line play. The game is won and lost in the trenches, and this that tired old cliche' holds true here.