Morning Update (Cliche Edition)

by Chris Thorman on Jan 2, 2008 7:47 AM CST in Article Updates Comment 6 comments

One of the Broncos offensive linemen has retired. Add one more team to the off season search for free agent offensive linemen.
Talking about trading Larry Johnson is a waste of time.
The apparent leading candidate to replace recently fired offensive coordinator Mike Solari is Eric Price, the offensive coordinator at the University of Texas–El Paso.
In case you missed it, Missouri destroyed Arkansas in the Cotton Bowl yesterday, 38 to 7.
Tampa Bay playoff tickets to the Bucs/Giants game have yet to sell out.
It has to be fun to give out end of season awards when your team is undefeated.
Man, this is a lot of sports cliches.

After a 4-12 season that was uncharacteristic for the franchise, you like to see a bit of housecleaning like the Chiefs did yesterday with their offensive coaching staff. Like DJ said in the comment section, the remaining vestiges of the Dick Vermeil coaching era are now gone and we can look towards the future with a renewed sense of optimism. At least something will change in 2008.

There are also rumors that the Chiefs may move to a zone blocking scheme next year. Wikipedia describes it well enough:

In a zone blocking scheme, fleet-footedness and athletic ability trump size as desirable qualities in offensive linemen. Coordination and technique matter more than muscle in implementing a successful scheme because defensive linemen are often double-teamed at the point of attack. Creating movement on the defensive line is more important than opening a specific hole in the defense.

Keep this in mind as we scout college or free agent offensive linemen. It will affect what type of linemen we're looking at.

Expect the end-of-season lists to start coming out either at the end of this week or the beginning of next week. We have a lot of time to kill in between talking about the draft and free agency.

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Zone blocking

If we do it right, then I think this is a good thing.

Denver has done it for years and annually churns out 1,000 yard rushers.

by Joel Thorman on Jan 2, 2008 9:10 AM CST reply actions 0 recs

I love the idea of zone blocking

this is more along the lines of putting schemes in to match personnel instead of round hole-square peg work we've been doing. Also, guess what college team runs zone blocking? If you guessed Michigan, you are correct, sir!

Destroyed is not the word for what Missouri did yesterday. Destroyed implies there were remains left. Now just need Va Tech to expose the Jayhawks and the injustice will be fully revealed.

I hate for the Donks to be looking in our market, but I'm glad their o-line is finally starting to melt. They've been too good for too long.

Okay, so, pure speculation time. At what point does LJ become expendable, despite the cap hit, if he's not now? I mean, I understand why people say to give him a year to bounce back, he had a great year last year, and a lot of people don't care about his attitude problems like I do. But what if he comes out and underperforms next season, too? What's the point for you?

Because if we're (re)building for the future, I have no problem with taking the cap hit, right here and now.

Not criticising Herm Edwards for anything since December '07.

by Ridiculous Matt on Jan 2, 2008 12:09 PM CST reply actions 0 recs

here's the thing, If you were going to unload

Johnson, his maximum value was probably at the end of last season. Now that he's pretty much missed a season due to injury AND has a fat contract, his value on the market is probably reduced to a point where it makes more sense just to get whatever we can out of him and hope for the best (ie no more missed seasons)

by sm7600 on Jan 2, 2008 12:29 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs

Agreed

Its too late to unload Larry. Last off season would have been the pinnacle in his trade value.

by Chris Thorman on Jan 2, 2008 12:40 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs

Zone blocking

One thing if we are going to go to zone blocking, we better get someone that knows how to do it. As the description says, its a much more technical scheme than what we've done before.

The Broncos didn't all of a sudden become a great running team just because they switched to zone blocking. It took the linemen time to learn it and find the right linemen that could run it.

In the long run, with the way Herm wants to run the ball, I think it would be ideal since it makes otherwise average runners look good.

From what I've seen it seems to work better for cut-back runners though, and LJ isn't really that great at cutting back. Kolby would do well with it, but I wonder how that would work out with LJ.

by DJ on Jan 2, 2008 5:30 PM CST reply actions 0 recs

LJ

can make the one cut needed in a zone blocking scheme...he can't make several consecutive quick cuts (ala Barry Sanders and to a much lesser degree, Kolby Smith) when there are two Defensive linemen and a LB there when he gets the ball.

by PVChiefsfan on Jan 4, 2008 1:00 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs