[Nightfyre]

Originally Posted by jeffp12

One of my biggest concerns is this: A great offensive line can make most quarterbacks look great. A terrible offensive line can make most quarterbacks look terrible.

So If you pick an amazing quarterback, a peyton manning or a dan marino, then sure, maybe he can overcome shortcomings in other places, but if you pick a Ben Roethlisberger, or a Trent Green or most mortal quarterbacks and put them behind a bad line you get a bad quarterback. So I would rather we shore up the line, shore up most of the team before we get a quarterback.

Herm's first year, when the offensive line was still as good as it was under vermeil, before guys started retiring, we made the playoffs despite losing trent green for most of the season. Damon Huard filled in and his stats looked like this
148-244 60.7 1878 yards 7.7yds/pass 11 td 1 int 98.0 rating

He was a pro bowl caliber QB because we ran the ball so well and had protection. Then in 07 and 08 we get the offensive line retirements and then huard looks like this
206-332 62.0 2257 6.8 11td 13int 76.8

and then in 08 he couldn't stay healthy and neither could Croyle because we couldn't protect them. You draft Peyton Manning and put him back there and we still don't have a lot of success, maybe he can overcome some of this, but he's not going to be the hall of famer he is without a good line. So I say invest in the big guys up front on both sides of the ball and they make everyone else look better. Far too often we give credit to running backs quarterbacks wide receivers and cornerbacks and safeties and linebackers for the stuff that linemen do.

You can easily shore up the line by drafting in the 3rd/4th round and signing a free agent or two.