Tulsa world is criticizing Spagnuolo and Devaney pretty sharply for making this deal.
The author argues that there are enough concerns about Jason Smith's health, Rodger Saffold's health, and Sam Bradford's health to warrant keeping Alex Barron around. His case is well made, and enough to give me pause... for about 8.2 seconds.
Bottom line folks: Barron is nowhere near as good as his defenders would have you believe 15 sacks in the past 32 games is pretty terrible. His defenders attempt to characterize that as an "average" performance. Oh bouy....
Let's play with that statement mathematically for a split second and see where that leads us. If all 5 of my men on the offensive line are average performers, and they each give up 15 sacks in 2 seasons, my offensive line will give up 75 sacks in 32 games (5 x15 = 75). That is an average of 2.34 sacks per game, or 37.5 sacks per season.
For the Rams 37.5 would be an improvement over the 44 we gave up last season, but still unacceptable. So here you have your explanation for the controversy over Barron: Barron gave up less sacks than some of the other guys, but this is damning with faint praise.
Even so, there should be no controversy. The penalties were the back breaker in the deal. 43 false starts in 74 starts? How many holding calls...? Although he has a big body for his position, the guy just doesn't play well.
Ram-fans seem to have such incredibly low standards these days... it is almost sickening. They don't seem to realize that we are never going to get out of the basement with "average" linemen such as this. To get out of the basement, we're going to need dramatically better talent than Barron brings to the table. None of these guys seem to recall Jackie Slater or Orlando Pace in their primes. They are just too young. I remember both of them. Barron was never like these two gents.
"Oh well, Dave, you can't expect to have guys like Jackie Slater or Orlando Pace all the time..."
No, that's precisely where you are wrong. We need to have guys like Slater and Pace around all the time. That needs to be a focal point of the organization. I am not surprised Devaney did this deal. I didn't think he would want Barron blocking for his $80 million baby.
So can Saffold be Slater and Smith-Pace, or vice-versa. Let's just say I am a hell of a lot more confident in these young men than I am in Barron. It is much more likely that both of these two men will turn into Slater & Pace than Barron would. After 5 years, we know what Barron is, and he ain't Slater or Pace.
So why not keep him as a back-up swing-tackle? I must confess that this is an interesting argument. Early in his career, Barron had a rep for being a flaming complainer. I doubt he would take a move to the bench very well. You have to be careful of that locker-room chemistry and atmosphere. Further, I don't think Devaney would want Barron blocking for Bradford even then.
If you read the comments on that Tulsa World article, you are going to read several folks who share my great concerns about Sam Bradford's robustness and physical toughness. The absolute premise of this piece is that Sam is fragile and the Rams line is not good. Several posting there think the Bradford era is going to be a short one in St. Louis.
How many times did I preach that message with conviction during the run up to the draft? How many times did I say that this whole thing was going to end in tears? How many times did I say they should be scouting Tebow, not Bradford?
Frankly, there can be only two possible reasons Devaney did not go after Tebow:
- Devaney bought into the line that Tebow is not QB prospect. If this is the case, we have a fool at the helm and we need to change that quick.
- Devaney believes Tebow is going to be a 2-3 year investment project before he bears fruit, and he is looking for a much more immediate turnaround on investment. He's taking a bigger risk for more immediate return. I think that is a snake-eyed bet.
We'll find out.
Anyhow, the Barron-Carpenter trade does not fundamentally alter the situation. It does not change the shape of things to come. It will eliminate a bunch of penalties. That is all.
