all 4 centers hurt? and other things about the 2014 OL

Okay something else.

What about Long and Saffold and Barksdale?

Long was also injured in the Chiefs game, same as Wells.

Saffold ALSO injured in the Chiefs game.

So that’s Oct. 26, Black Sunday.

Now using PFF grades (fwiw), when did Barksdale become a problem?

According to their grades, he has 2 spurts where he plays poorly and gets consecutive negative grades. Weeks 8-10, and weeks 14-17 (with a brief “decent game” interval in week 16).

So it starts in week 8. The Chiefs game.

Here’s the thing about that. If the rest of the line struggles, it is hard for one player to play above that. He’s not in sync with them, they cut back the things they can do so he’s more exposed, he gets less help, he has to help out more and so gets over-stretched, and so on.

Actually in weeks 2-5 he’s graded pretty highly.

That all makes it look like the KC game killed the OL.

After the KC game, it went like this:

LOT. Long out. Robinson shifts to LOT. He was supposed to be the LOG this year.
LOG. Saffold hurt, plays with a bad shoulder the rest of the way. Was supposed to be the ROG with GR at LOG. Is not the same after the injury. According to PFF grades, only has 2 good games after KC.
OC. Wells–elbow injured in KC game. As I say in the post above, all 4 centers hurt in 2014. Man. Good luck coming back from THAT. This means they have a rookie at LOT and a banged-up center…which is just a recipe for disaster. Wells played below average all year. I don’t think he ever really recovered from his illness over the summer (an infection that got him hospitalized).
ROG. Saffold was a great OG in 2013, and then ends up being a mediocre LOG in 2014. Joseph was never supposed to play.
ROT. Barksdale plays ever snap and near as we know was not injured. BUT he has a stretch of bad games starting in week 8 (Chiefs game). Before that he had one below avg. game (week 6, 1st SF game).

So… theory:

Barksdale and Saffold were both fine until Saffold was hurt, Wells was hurt, Long was hurt, GR shifted to LOT, and Joseph had to start.

For the future this probably means Barksdale is fine, Saffold is fine, GR improves in the off-season (in fact the odds are against that NOT happening).

Wells is probably on the wrong side of old and injured, and Long probably isn’t back.

That means they have 3 pieces in place. That’s a lot actually. The days of year to year 5-man OL continuity died with free agency and the cap. Having 3 (if they sign Barksdale) is good.

I say, with all that, they not only have a good chance of fixing the OL, they have a chance to field a very good one.

wv wrote:

i dont think Wells was ever
a particularly effective player for
any length of time.

Well depends on what you mean by “length of time.”

He plays well when he comes back for the 2nd half of 2012.

He plays well enough for the 1st half of 2013. Or, he’s not the major problem in the 1st 4 games, when the line struggled some. But then I always thought that those 1st 4 games was due to the offense as a whole–they were playing a spread with young receivers PLUS their feature back could not run and everyone knew it (Richardson).

Long got injured all up. But he did not start out poorly. He actually grades out well for most of 2013. He was much MORE effective once they went to a play-action offense and away from that gawd-forsaken Richardson + baby receivers in a spread offense, but still.

If you mean Wells got hurt a lot, yeah he did.

But then. Their are only 2 years in the last 12 where the Rams OL is NOT hurt a lot–2003 and 2010. So is that Wells or the Rams OL curse?

Demoff btw says that OL injuries are the Rams achilles heel.