Experts: how bad is the OL, really?

i think the best way to answer this question is to judge our games.....if our line was good we would still be first in the WEST and Gore is atleast #3 behind peterson and C. johnson ...and alex smith is now considered The New ALEx SMITH instead of THE SAME OLD ALEX....BUT its way better OL than what we have couple of years ago.

Originally posted by leolion:
Going into the season, the OL looked like a weak spot. Since then, M Smith retired. Pashos got picked up won a job then went on IR. Staley got hurt. Rachal played like the inexperienced player he is. So, the 9ers are playing two third string tackles and a second string guard. How can we expect them to be more than terrible?

ohh man... that happen to sux!

It's pretty bad. The big problem that I see with them is that they aren't athletic. The guards are just maulers, and they're not even good at that. Same thing with Snyder. You need to be athletic to play tackle. He's not. Only Staley, and Heitmann are athletic. And I have been very impressed with Barry Sims.

According to Pro Football Focus this is where our OL rank positionally

Staley: 32nd
Bass: 64th
Heitmann: 11th
Rachal: 62nd
Snyder: 65th

As a group, football outsiders rank the unit 31st in run blocking and 29th in pass blocking. Awful.

Originally posted by Schulzy:
It's pretty bad. The big problem that I see with them is that they aren't athletic. The guards are just maulers, and they're not even good at that. Same thing with Snyder. You need to be athletic to play tackle. He's not. Only Staley, and Heitmann are athletic. And I have been very impressed with Barry Sims.

According to Pro Football Focus this is where our OL rank positionally

Staley: 32nd
Bass: 64th
Heitmann: 11th
Rachal: 62nd
Snyder: 65th

As a group, football outsiders rank the unit 31st in run blocking and 29th in pass blocking. Awful.

So basically, Baas/Rachal/Snyder are not only playing at backup level, but league-worst backup level.

It's the worst OL in NFL history.

Originally posted by excelsior:
Hey Joecool. You are always clamoring for a new QB. Just who do you suggest we get? If a free agent, will he be willing to come here? If a draftee, who, and are you sure he will play better than Alex?

I am not clamoring for a new QB. I just want to bring to light that all of the things that were said when JTO was playing and when Hill were playing could be said when Alex Smith plays.

If it isn't 3 and outs as Smith is similar to Hill, it's turnovers as Smith is similar to JTO. I just want to point out the facts and uncover blindness and uncover hypocrites.

Oh wait, Smith threw for 3 TDs, well, JTO was putting up some good passing numbers also.

The one thing no QB is doing that Hill did was win and no one can discount that.

Everyone needs to man up and admit that the QB position has not improved and if you truly think it has, well then I wonder how JTO could have performed without Martz I don't care about turnovers attitude. At least he threw for a 300 yard game.

Also, about the offensive line: seems like TEN OL sucked when Collins was in and now it's miraculously better.

A QB makes a huge difference on how "well" an OL blocks. A QB can hide a lot of OL problems.

MIN OL pass blocking was near the bottom until Favre came in...

We can go on forever but you all want to make excuses for these players when the answer is right in front of you.

What haven't we had in the past 6 years?

-------An adequete QB, an average QB...hell... a QB that's not in the bottom 5.

Terrible. In my opinion. This is my answer to your question and response to a lot of the posts that I've seen.

Run Game: A NFL offensive line has to be able to get you anything short of a yard 99.9% of the time by sheer virtue of knowing the snap count. I don't have a problem with Raye's game planning or play calling. This team and it's playbook were built to be a run first team and in the NFL you can't change that this deep in the season. It seems like this boards perception of our offense is that the play calls in the huddle are "21 run middle," but I think Raye does a good job of game planning and ATTEMPTING to exploit weaknesses. If you think about our line now, we're too unathletic to pull or trap well, and if you can't do that you need to dominate the line of scrimmage and get on the second level but it turns out we can't do that either. So realistically our game plan is to occupy the defensive line and play shorthanded with Gore and Norris against a full linebacker corp. Not a good chance of success. In the spread at we get nickel packages on the field, which occupies second level players (DBs or LBs) with coverage, thus giving Gore a chance at positive yardage.

Passing Game: There are 2 possibilities. A. The offensive line provides so little time that Alex Smith is forced to make a pre-snap read and stick with it, or B. Regardless of time Alex Smith makes a pre-snap read and refuses not to stick with it. I'm pretty sure A is correct based solely on the fact that we excel in the spread. In a spread offense it's difficult for defenses to disguise coverage, and as a result Alex makes a good pre-snap read, delivers the ball quickly and accurately and we move down the field. In a pro form offense, defenses can disguise coverages and progressions become lengthier, requiring longer pass protection thus -7 yards passing in a half. You can't blame the quarterback for that.

The question then becomes why don't we run more spread? In my opinion, the spread wasn't installed to be a spread offense and was installed as a down and long package. That is to say we probably installed about 20 plays for 2-minute drill and 3 and 9+ situations, and not much more. We probably don't have much of a short to intermediate game plan out of the spread, and we can't run it on a down to down basis. I don't think that's something you want to openly admit to the media.

My lengthy and unprofessional 2 cents.