Thread: Draft OL in first round!

The Vikes fall in 2010 can be blamed on poor OL performance. Our bread and butter is AP & giving the QB time to find studs like Rice & Harvin. Vikes need to take OT in first round.

Originally Posted by "johnkdbr" #1094470

The Vikes fall in 2010 can be blamed on poor OL performance. Our bread and butter is AP & giving the QB time to find studs like Rice & Harvin. Vikes need to take OT in first round.

What games were you watching. The Vikes failure last season was QB. Point blank period. Or Qb stunk it up last season. Some of that was due to crappy WRs towards the middle of the season but.... make no mistake... it wasn't the OL, who was decent in Pass blocking last season.

I wouldn't hate picking OL in round 1. McKinnie and Hutch are getting old.

Then again, I wouldn't really hate picking most positions in round 1. We could use upgrades/future replacements at a lot of positions.

Originally Posted by "johnkdbr" #1094470

The Vikes fall in 2010 can be blamed on poor OL performance. Our bread and butter is AP & giving the QB time to find studs like Rice & Harvin. Vikes need to take OT in first round.

Personally I blame it on the head coach, his scheme and not using the players to their strengths( The OL falls into this category) but since it is your thread, who are you saying we should take that is a good value at the 12 spot?

My problem with people saying take OT is who do we bench? We can't give up on Load after his good rookie year and then bad second year, most people have sophomore slumps. We can't bench Mckinnie for the money we pay him. I don't know what to do with our OT sitch. I would love to trade fat mac for a 2nd rounder, but that can't happen with the current cba situation.

Originally Posted by "johnkdbr" #1094470

The Vikes fall in 2010 can be blamed on poor OL performance. Our bread and butter is AP & giving the QB time to find studs like Rice & Harvin. Vikes need to take OT in first round.

I wouldn't say all poor play was on the OL, but there was a hell of a lot of it that was attributed to them.

I've been advocating the need to acquire better OL men every year since 2005 & trashing Childress' offensive blocking scheme that wasn't working consistently & effectively, primarily on passing plays with ineffective pass blockers like McKinnie.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't there a large crop of decent OL men available in the draft this year? If so, I don't believe we need to take one at 12, but definitely need to address it in both the draft AND FA.

Originally Posted by "12purplepride28" #1094483

My problem with people saying take OT is who do we bench? We can't give up on Load after his good rookie year and then bad second year, most people have sophomore slumps. We can't bench Mckinnie for the money we pay him. I don't know what to do with our OT sitch. I would love to trade fat mac for a 2nd rounder, but that can't happen with the current cba situation.

How about move Load to the inside, Slide Mac to the Right and play the Rookie at LT?

That's a pretty big RIght side. Anyone one notice we stopped running to the left?

Keep Load and Mac where they are, get a bigger,more physical C and beef up the reserves while scrapping the current scheme and trying something a bit more suited to the big guys.

Originally Posted by "kevoncox" #1094514

Originally Posted by "12purplepride28" #1094483

My problem with people saying take OT is who do we bench? We can't give up on Load after his good rookie year and then bad second year, most people have sophomore slumps. We can't bench Mckinnie for the money we pay him. I don't know what to do with our OT sitch. I would love to trade fat mac for a 2nd rounder, but that can't happen with the current cba situation.

How about move Load to the inside, Slide Mac to the Right and play the Rookie at LT?

That's a pretty big RIght side. Anyone one notice we stopped running to the left?

Don't feel good about sticking a rookie at LT, especially if we have a rookie QB and pick our LT later than round 2.

Most players can't come in and just start at LT unless they're an elite prospect like Joe Thomas or someone like that. Look at Oher, he's struggled mightily at LT, I truly do believe Mac plays better than Oher does at LT.

Seems like a 2nd tier rookie LT, rookie QB and struggling defense is a recipe for a 4-12 season.

I'm all for drafting OL, but not with our #1 pick, and not for a starting tackle.

I'm also all for giving Load another shot. He struggled last season, bu he played much better his rookie season. You could even go as far as to say he was our top lineman in 09. Curious, how much of that success you can attribute to a guy like Favre making the whole line look better than they really were. I wonder if Loadholt is truly this bad, or if he just had an off year.

Also, regarding the rookie OL, one thing to remember, the WCO is a complicated system. Line assignments are also very complicated to learn. Without Minicamps and OTA's, it's going to be tough to get everyone ready to go for week 1 if there is one. any rookie OT we draft would have to come from a school that has a similar system if we expect any good to come from it right away.