that Samuel’s knee would be “managed” throughout the course of the season? Clearly you want your #1 lineman practicing all week, but maybe its just to give him an extra bit of rest. If he misses practice again tomorrow then there is an issue. Until then, don’t worry too much.

Plus, a one-legged Samuels is 3x better than anything else we got

Not an option.

Both lines needed serious upgrades and Orakpo was a more talented player than Oher. I’m not saying the O-line didn’t need some serious help I’m just saying the D-line was in just as bad of shape and was looking alot like the O-line was last year(clearly approaching a huge drop off) We should have been investing draft picks on O-linemen the last several years. It put us in a position where we had huge holes on both lines so we picked the most talented lineman at our spot. I don’t think reaching for a player because he fills an arguably more pressing need is an effective way to build a team that is competitive every year. It reminds me too much of Cerrato deciding we had to get a big pass catcher so using three 2nd rounders on them when the O-line and D-line clearly was getting old. The fact that he didn’t address either of those lines with a second rounder contributed significantly to not only the O-line dropping off but us having to make that panic trade for JT which further hampered our ability to upgrade the O-line. If you look at our O and D lines and remove Jarmon and Orakpo from the equation the D-line was a more pressing concern, especially in the long term. I just want the team to think ahead and stockpile talent on both lines so people are ready to step up when needed instead of waiting for there to be a huge hole and making knee jerk moves to try and fix things. Taking Orakpo was one of the more encouraging things for me in awhile in terms of seeing signs that the team knows how to build for the future.

first of all the only tackle available for that spot was Oher, and he’s a right tackle. I think we got the better player with Orakpo. I’d rather have a legit playmaker on defense than a question mark O-lineman, even if it is our bigger need. What we SHOULD have done was spend mor epics on O-linemen last year, and drafted some O-linemen this year. We need to start using multiple picks on O-linemen in every draft, until we can build a legitimate line. If we don’t use our first 2 picks on O-linemen next year, then Vinny’s an idiot even bigger idiot than I thought.

The 3rd Round should pretty much be the cutoff point for drafting offensive Tackles, Guards, and Centers. I’m not saying you can’t find a diamond in the rough, but we need to pick our OL no later than the 3rd round to get our best shot at a keeper.

The one position on the OL where that is an exception is the LT. I believe the LT should be picked no later than the 1st round. LT is one of the most important positions in the NFL (preceded by CB and QB).