thin at tackle

adams has been limited by some sort of back injury or pain. gilbert has a groin injury but did practice. gilbert gets hurt alot it seems like to me. we will be very thin at the LT spot if something were to happen to max. anyone hear anything about adams injury? did he fall off the bench? will beachum be active this week? thoughts?

 

the entire OL gets hurt a lot... name one player on the OL that you can write his name down and pretty much figure him to be there week after week?

HINES

 

foster.

 

I'm not sure about the guys injuries but I am sure that we have no depth. If you watched the panthers/gnats game last night you would probably be as jealous as me. Before the game they kept talking about how the the Giants have so many hurt and thought it would work in the panthers favor. Then the game started and Eli was standing in the pocket all night like it was flag football. They were deep in to their roster of receivers as well but guys were having career games. I would love to see us have that kind of depth. They are also banged up on d and they were harassing Cam all night long. Their fanbase should consider their self very fortunate to have a team with such depth. We lose Ryan Clark and Denver is pretty much guaranteed a win. We lose Mendy and we've yet to have 100 yds of rushing eventhough I admittedly will say I thought Redman was better but after 2 games I think Dwyer should skip him. I suppose the only 2 positions we have a real depth of are receivers and qbs. It keeps me on the edge of my seat thinking how close we are to an injury that could devastate our season.

 

And here I thought we got through one game without an opine injury. I've been very critical of this bunch. Just seems like every year no improvement. Only new person is colon and he just in a new position. They should be better than what they have shown so far.

And to make matters worst, Gilbert got hurt the second to the last play in the game and Adams came in for two plays and got hurt. Geez!

 

Probably the only time EVER that someone has called tackles on ANY team THIN!

 

true

we clammer for these draft picks and then don't want to wait until they are ready to play as backups let alone starters. add injuries when they did play and yes we are weaker at the backup positions. did we really think all these draft picks were going to take the nfl by storm from week one on? it goes with the territory more often then not. the guys we have starting though are not backups and they are not new playing together. sure colon is new at the guard position, but more playing time isn't going to increase his foot speed. or gilberts or fosters or max's. we still have big slow linemen. d-lines get into these guys quickly limiting what our guys can do. they also take to long to create which limits our backs and allows pass rushers to walk these guys back towards ben way to early shrinking any pocket thats there. i'm not sure coaching or scheme can really help slow linemen. maybe player changes should be experimented with after this game. we will have two weeks to play with it. maybe just position change will help alone?

i feel like we are grasping at straws. i'd really hate for us to just wait and see if it gets better, it may not.

 

Mac, I am right with you on your assessment, The STEELERS HAVE poured alot
of money into the OL for along time, with not much success. I really think the Steelers need to
go back to the drawing board, to see how they are evaluating OL and transitioning to the NFL game.
We have 2 quality OL, and that is it. We have to find(ATHLETIC OL) out there that can handle the Pro game.
If we keep drafting these 6 ft 6 340 pd OL that can't move, we will continue to have problems.

 

Pouncey, DeCastro, and Adams are all athletic. Especially the first two. Gilbert's not a bad athlete for his size. The help is either hurt or not yet ready. I'd be satisfied with the athleticism of Adams / Colon / Pouncey / DeCastro / Gilbert, and that's the plan.

 

We won't see that lineup until next year.

 

thin at tackle

seems like an oxymoron to me

 

Your point being?

My point was that we have already taken steps to right the situation. We've drafted 4 offensive linemen in the first 2 rounds past 3 years. Two of the four (Pouncey and DeCastro) are phenomenal athletes, one (Adams) should be pretty athletic and the other (Gilbert) is at least a decent athlete. I mean, he's not perfect, but a lack of athleticism isn't his problem. I think he moves his feet well for a guy that size. "Finding" more athletic linemen now (or next April) won't help us in 2012.

 

we have a couple of more athletic guys , but they are not quite ready for primetime, yet. pouncey is the epitimy of an athletic lineman. he's a guy that can be on the move, hold his own strait up or block 3 different people on the same run play leading the runner. decastro, i don't think is quite his level, but he is the next best lineman we will have. i don't think gilbert or adams is that athletic. adams would be next though. neither one has good change of direction ability and a double move by a rusher leaves them reaching for air right now. colon is just slow footed.

beachum and lee are versitile and a little more athletic. they are lighter and shorter though. beachum has long arms and a solid base. he needs some upper body mass. lee is strong as an ox and nasty, but from a small school. so we have to be patient with these guys. adams needs more time, but i wouldn't hesitate to use him on the right side more this year. at least for some game action. he can run block. we have never tried gilbert at the guard position. at least that i'm aware of. maybe thats his calling.

 

Thin? I wouldn't say thin. Have you seen the size of our left tackles? Why do you think they get beat around the edge so much? These guys are huge and slow. Not thin...

 

What is our average weight on the oline anyone know?

 

problem is they are all 5 injury prone.. adams as they said played 2 plays and got hurt... colon out 2 seasons... pouncy out when it counted 2 season with the ankle (hopefully thats over) decastro (out) and gilbet eye, hip, groin so far this year ...

HINES

 

Havent you noticed it's a trend when we replace one lineman with one from the bench they usualy get injured pretty quick as well, like Lagursky has in a few games:REASON- these backups are coming in cold turkey without any warm ups, stretching exercizes or any other exercizes to limber up, maybe they should periodicy do some stretching exercizes or at least get on the bike and limber up their legs during the game so as to at least have some semblence of a warmup before they strain their cold muscles on a block....