By the Numbers: The OL Situation

Pete smith said:

Where does Callahan fit into this?

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He is the Offensive Line Coach, he is in charge of this unit. He took last years starters and shuffled the right side of the line. Last year it was Blaise Andries and Daniel Faalele on the right side. This year to get Curtis Dunlap Jr. on the field they shuffled Andries to left guard Olson moved to center and the left tackle is Sam Schlueter.

Callahan knows the player, certainly he knows its not working. With the bye week they need to either clean up the missed assignments or shuffle the players. Doing more of the same is pure insanity.

die hard gopher said:

I think Kirk and Fleck have always been inside zone guys and recruit lineman for that system but Dunlap and Faalele were just so good that you can't pass up two 4 star Under Armor All Americans just because they aren't an ideal scheme fit.

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Right.

When ZA comes up to Fleck and says "hey my teammate down at IMG, this 6-9 400lbs huge guy from Australia wants to come up with me and check out Minnesota, can he come on a visit", you're never going to turn that down. Especially when his 4-star other teammate (Dunlap) decides he wants to come up here too and check it out. And ZA and Fleck sell them both on coming here and playing right away. That's a promise Fleck has to deliver on, regardless how "poor" of a fit our system might actually be. The potential to open up a pipeline to IMG alone, is worth it to give them a shot.

I made that up. That's how it might have gone down, in my mind. But my guess is that I'm not too far off from the real truth of it.

Not a defense of the OL as they have not been good, but I have seen more than a few plays these first 3 weeks where there have been some opportunities for big plays and the RB's and once Morgan I remember have not made the correct cut that would have sprung big plays. You get a couple of those and the average numbers end up looking much better. At the end of last year Mo was a on a tear where it seemed every cut was the right one. That of course is impossible, but I think there may be a few more chances out there than it seems.