Quote:
Originally Posted by Belfast Saint
The starting oline only played the 1st quarter before giving way to the younger guys. It was more or less the same offensive line as last year but with Kreutz instead of Goodwin. Stinchcomb played although I thought he'd been dealing with some injuries in camp. I think everyone identified the Oline as being one of the goats from an otherwise pretty solid performance for the Saints (albeit in pre-season). It's hard to know sometimes why it seems the Oline is doing poorly and it can be one player, a number of players, bad scheming, or non-Oline positions creating many of the problems.
I had a look at the starters' performance and came out with the following grades:
Bushrod: 85%
Nicks: 83%
Kreutz: 85%
Evans: 91%
Stinchcomb: 58%
Grades are pretty simple: + for a good play or where the lineman did his job, - for a bad play or where the lineman did not do his job. The grade is just the % of positive plays out of total plays. Some of these individual grades you might agree with, some you might not. It's my own take really based on what I consider to be a decent job by the various linemen. I don't have a playbook so I can't say for certain whether the right player got blocked but I have a decent understanding of oline blocking schemes and concepts and it's generally easy to see what should have happened. And also the film is difficult to work with - much easier with endzone copy, so some extenuating circumstances which affect grades get missed, i.e. RB trips a llineman, lineman gets run over - all you see is lineman getting run over.
All in all the Oline wasn't bad. Stinchcomb was not good. Not good at all. I'm going to chalk it up to pre-season and some sort of injury problem but he did not look very good. Bushrod caught some flak but he was pretty solid and gave up no pressure although he did have a false start. There were 16 plays in all of which two I couldn't grade due to the film being cut off, and there was a fumbled exchange (- for Kreutz) and penalty (- for Bushrod).
Kreutz was ok. He's pretty sound and looks quick and active. He seems to be to be more of a 'in the way' blocker than someone who either gets real (or even decent) push in the run game or is able to be very stout in pass blocking. He locks on well in run blocking and keeps his legs churning but he's not really powerful. He slows guys down in the pass game. It's still early days but I don't see him as being an upgrade over Goodwin. More or less the same level but different in style. I'm biased in Tennant's favour but I thought Tennant had the more dynamic performance tonight (but I didn't grade the second team.)
Below is the more detailed play by play analysis and grades:
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Thanks for the in depth look
Looks like we need help at right tackle.
Did anybody happen to notice which of our running backs and tight ends are able to block well?