Originally posted by NYniner85:
Originally posted by genus49:
Originally posted by OldJoe:
Having watched every college game Kap has ever played, when he lost confidence in his offensive line (no one made the NFL from his OLs - Bitonio came later) he bailed (early?). I saw this last year from him for the first time in the NFL. If the OL can't pass block this year I don't think you will see noticeable improvement.
I think for him to be excellent he needs quality pass protection (and no not every QB is with decent protection). But, I also find the bashers using Manning, Brady and Young (all HOF level) a little over the top in talking about Kap. Notice how they don't use Newton, Locker, Ponder, Gabbert and Dalton to bash him. They all were drafted before him. Or even the over-hyped RG3?
And isn't Kap 4-0 against Brady and Rodgers with decent blocking?
It's not just Kap who struggles when the protection is poor. Tom Brady and Peyton Manning look sad if their OL is giving up pressure the way ours did last year. Very few QBs maintain quality play under duress. Ben Roethlisberger is probably the only guy who plays at a high level under big pressure.
One of the big differences with Brady and Manning when it came to poor pass blocking was the coaching staff made adjustments accordingly.... Jim didn't, but I also think Kap needed to control the line of scrimmage better.
I wonder about something though... A great center sets up the pass protection calls at the line. We had some new blood at center and a lot of injuries, could a lot of the pass pro-problems that were already present been even greater exaggerated last year by the lack of control at the line of scrimmage by our inexperienced centers? I mean I know we did them no favors in play calling and both timing and actual play call wise but it you have to wonder if we were always getting the right protection call from the center when we line up.
