Quote:
Originally Posted by duncan_idaho
We can agree to disagree. He didn't get up and high point the ball the same way (even in that highlight clip, he is not dominating by getting ABOVE guys the way he did before the injury. Size and ball placement), he didn't run away from LB like he did before the injury.
And even if he WAS the same in 2016 as he was before the injury... (1) That's the best example you can find and (2) it was short-lived.
But he did have the injury. Cannot get away from or around that.
OL knee strength, flexibility, and soundness is still super important to what they do. No, he isn't cutting 40 yards downfield. He's just anchoring and redirecting and fighting for leverage and balance constantly, with combined weights of 600 pounds usually at odds.
If the team takes him, I'll be hopeful that they're right and he's the unicorn, and not LeCharles Bentley or Jack Conklin or JC Jackson or Jarod Mayo or Victor Cruz or Ryan Williams or Cadillac Williams or Lucas Niang or or Andre Roberson or Jeremy Lin or Victor Oladipo or any of the other dudes who were never the same again.
I don't care about past tense with him. Sure, before the injury, he had all the things you reference and was a superior player and prospect to Morris and Suamataiea. But we don't know that he still is (and running around in shorts and a t-shirt in workouts isn't going to prove that he still is, either).
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Here's a research study on patellar injuries[/URL]. Not good news - of the 16 OL who've had the injury over the past 15 years, only 2 made it back to the same level. That makes it VERY risky. I'm sure there have been advances in medicine, but it seems like an awful lot to gamble on.
pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11806464
Bear in mind, there are a lot of other teams in front of us who would love a high ceiling tackle. If he's available to us, it means their medical staff didn't feel good enough to take him with what would be a value pick for them too.