Maurkice Pouncey's career an overall disappointment?

CLEAR ENOUGH FOR YA??? Just kidding. I don't really have strong feelings on this subject. To me it really depends on the future. If he never plays again, then yeah, it was a mistake. If he returns to being awesome and finishes it out with minimal time missed, then I like it.

 

I'm all for Pouncey staying and moving to guard and canning foster. He would have always been better in that role I think.

 

Then who plays Center? Why would you take Foster off the field for Wallace? Foster is better hands-down. Plus, Pouncey is an All-Pro at center and his success at guard is nothing more than a theory. I'm sure he'd be fine, but I'm only basing that on the fact he's an All-Pro at center. I don't understand the assumption he'd be even better if he changed positions. To me that's like saying Jeff Reed (in the good days) was such a great kicker for us that we should have moved him to punter to solve our punting woes, and then just played whoever at kicker.

We have it right the way it is. If you want to drop Foster, we need to get a better guard.

 

Since he is not coming back, and I'm not a fan of canning nor paying dead $ if we did, I'm purely speaking for next season. Wallace would be even better with pounce at guard and maybe pounce don't get busted up as much.

2 athletic bulldozers pulling in decastro and Pouncey would be a special thing.

Maybe I'm wrong... I just think he's built better for the spot

 

it's a lot of money for a center but if they could match this line up better and he had the full year to work with munch we probably would have seen an even greater result in the run game.

i've talked about the matching up of the line before around here and it's back to foster. pouncey is a multiple target player in the run game. we were ready to showcase that more this year under munch. DD is part of that equation along with pouncey and beachum. foster's inability to move well limits some of what we were trying to do to with a more mobile interior.

i like foster and he has played well for what he is and when we played more of a power game, but we were trying to change from that. that makes him just a bad fit with what we were trying to do. now with wallace it almost made us go back to more of a mixed power game, but we are still trying to run that mobile game with he and foster which retards it somewhat.

remember we had beachum, pouncey and DD to start the season. it was players with quite different skill sets and mobility than what we have now. so comparing the two lines is out of sorts. we have done ok with wallace but it's not near where it could be under munch had we watched it blossom as he would have liked.

wallace brings an attitude to the o-line which i like. he's got some mean in his game that rubs off on the guys around him. that's a plus. foster has that at times too. these two hold up pretty well if we run right at a team or hold up well if a team is rushing the passer out of a straight up defense. they're trouble is when we call plays that require them to move much and have to quickly adjust to stunts and late blitzes in the pass game that requires mobility.

pouncey has some struggles in pass protect at times but still has that quickness to move in the pass game when needed, but his value is the run game and if we had a guard beside him that could add to these phases of the game we would really have something. the trouble is munch hasn't had enough time with this group to see it work yet. is he worth the money? good question, but we have just not seen all the parts in place together to really asses the situation under munch. we now may be starting all over on the left side of the line again before we would have seen it work.

 

Well in today's NFL the Guards get to do most of the pulling and not the Center . This would allow Pouncey to do what he does best and get out and get Nasty in space more often ...It would also make the Team more multiple as we could run the same play to either side with similar skilled guys leading the play...This would help in the running game and it would also be a huge boost in the PA game ,as now you could run more multiple type route trees off of either direction PA...

Another huge added bonus is who helps the Center the 2 Guards who helps the Tackles the 2 Guards... Pouncey would be a great Guard almost any guy that can snap and play with his head down will play better not having to snap and being able to see what they are hitting, or see who is getting ready to hit them ....This will directly increase his chance of staying healthy I have zero doubt about that...

 

I'm already convinced that putting him at guard would make our guard position better. But the difference between Foster and Pouncey at guard is much less than Pouncey and Wallace at center. And most of all, I'm just not one of those people that thinks it doesn't matter who your center is. If "any guy" could do it, then we'd have seen little to no dropoff when Wallace took over. I've seen a lot of dropoff, and I think there's more that goes unnoticed with that position.

Also, I'm calling BS on the notion that our PA game would get a "huge boost" from Pouncey pulling right instead of Foster. We do run to the right, so teams have to respect it. And again, moving Pouncey would lower our overall talent and ability on the line by putting inferior players on the field, at least one of them out of position. That's no way to threaten a defense. I think they'll be more scared of all our runs if we have an All Pro center in the game and a decent guard, as opposed to a probably good but experimental guard and a pretty crappy center.

Also, Pouncey does get out in space at lot for a center. It's a dimension we only have when he's on the field - 3 guys that can pull instead of just 2. You talk a lot about X's and O's. I think it's weird you don't value the center position. It's getting to be habit to doubt Tomlin due to his confusing decisions, but what about Mike Munchak? You could try talking to him about Maurkice Pouncey and see what he says. I know having Pouncey as his center is one of the main reasons he took the job here. I don't think he'd feel that way if a guy who is mediocre on his best day like Wallace could do just as well.

 

I see your points and I do understand I just don't agree . IMO our best PA pass is that 25 Counter as I call it not sure the Steelers name? but it's the one where DD pulls and Bell bends back into the 5 hole ...I don't think that run does very well at all behind Foster therefore the WR'S are no where near as open ....

I will also add that against any 3-4 Team then Pouncey will have more value as guard . 1 of the first rules of blocking scheme is you don't pull the Center when he is covered, this even allows Teams to shade Pouncey if they want and keep him from getting out ....I just don't think we get him in space nearly enough and when I couple that with his injury History I think Guard is the obvious answer ... Again the Guard gets to help 2 positions and the Center does not . In my experience most of the best running Teams have very good Guard play , most of our runs are really on the RB'S . This is why they keep saying Bell is the most patient runner they have ever seen.....He didn't always run like that he has to to allow the slow pullers to get to their blocks ....With Pouncey that wont be the case and Bell will be hitting it up in there a step quicker.....

 

maybe finney at center. he was a pretty decent center/guard at K-state. they seem to like him here. myself, i'd like to see pouncey stay at center and get a new guard. finney possibly or maybe a draft pick or maybe beachum comes back and is able to play on the interior. hubbard, wallace, finney, beachum are all more mobile than foster. we can speculate all off season, but i doubt wallace would become the long term starter at center next year. foster needs replaced with some youth and mobility. wallace could be upgraded at center but he is a decent backup. both are in their 30's so i'm not opposed to a youth movement though. with munch here it would probably be an easier transition for a young guy and i have faith munch could make it work that way.

 

pouncey is valuable at center in the ZBS that they were trying to make work since they had him. foster hurts that. one quicker guard added will make and match our interior up much better allowing pouncey to be more effective in that scheme.

 

Now we're trying to change the best part of the best RB in the league? If your argument was true, then we should all send Ramon Foster a thank you card.

I'd also be interested in seeing the stat that says guard is safer than center. One thing's for sure, for this most recent injury Pouncey was way out in space and upfield.