Quote:
Originally Posted by htismaqe
This. I haven't done it as much this year but I do occasionally watch the All 22. Trey is not struggling because of Taylor. The majority of his problems have been him just getting beat hard right up the middle.
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Never underestimate the dopamine hit that comes with a 'name' telling you what you wanted to hear.
If anything, the idea that Smith has struggled in pass protection may be a little overstated. He's lost ugly a few times and that's created the belief (I certainly had it).
But when you dig into the numbers he's been no worse than solid in pass pro.
What it's starting to look like is that interior pass protection just isn't moving the needle as much right now. And that seems to be confirmed by what we're seeing from our DL despite having the most dominant interior pass-rusher in the NFL.
It's just looking more and more like we have a misallocation of talent and, going forward, perhaps a bit of a misallocation of resources as Thuney and Creed end up with the highest cap figures at their respective positions in the NFL. They could be EXCEPTIONAL at pass protection (in fact, they are) and it's still not solving our fundamental pass pro issues.
What you need on the interior is 'solid'. Once you get past that, your marginal returns on 'spectacular' seem pretty minimal.