Long and Mills

[GrizzlyBear]

Watching the game highlights cuz I worked through the whole game, Inoticed the right side of the line was ravaging the Bengals. In every pass they showed on NFL network, Long handled atkins no problem and Mills was a beast with Malalugua . I think this tandem could be start of lots of time Cutler. Am I wrong?

[Uncle Buck]

Watching the game highlights cuz I worked through the whole game, Inoticed the right side of the line was ravaging the Bengals. In every pass they showed on NFL network, Long handled atkins no problem and Mills was a beast with Malalugua . I think this tandem could be start of lots of time Cutler. Am I wrong?

My initial reaction on Long was that he had his arms fully extended and was still putting people on their back. On the plays I noticed this, he did not necessarily rock the defender with a good punch, but just moved them at will. The guy is crazy powerful. I am extremely optimistic on the tandem.

[BearFan2000]

Agree and something else to consider is their age. With two rookies starting from day 1, Bushrod and Slauson still fairly young with Garza the oldest of the lot. We could see this line gel and grow for the foreseeable future. Find the next young center and we could be set. Taking an area of glaring weakness for almost a decade and turning it into a team strength. Look ahead to next year when Long and Mills have a season under their belt and we enter camp with the line settled. Continuity spanning season after season is what makes great offensive lines.

 

Bushrod - 29

Garza - 34

Long - 24

Mills - 22

Slauson - 27

 

That said we can now perhaps focus next offseason on improving other areas, adding depth, and maybe finding that next dominant D lineman.

[Stinger226]

Agree and something else to consider is their age. With two rookies starting from day 1, Bushrod and Slauson still fairly young with Garza the oldest of the lot. We could see this line gel and grow for the foreseeable future. Find the next young center and we could be set. Taking an area of glaring weakness for almost a decade and turning it into a team strength. Look ahead to next year when Long and Mills have a season under their belt and we enter camp with the line settled. Continuity spanning season after season is what makes great offensive lines.

 

Bushrod - 29

Garza - 34

Long - 24

Mills - 22

Slauson - 27

 

That said we can now perhaps focus next offseason on improving other areas, adding depth, and maybe finding that next dominant D lineman.

Small sample size, but lots of upside here, could turn into a strength. One year and we actually put a good line together, so much for the old regime.

[AZ54]

Small sample size, but lots of upside here, could turn into a strength. One year and we actually put a good line together, so much for the old regime.

 

I agree on the sample size in terms of number of games but in terms of number of plays we had well over 30 and that's relevant data. If we go back over the last few years could we even find a singular game like that against that good of a Dline? That means this data point is likely part of a new data set. It's hard to believe the league's best DT would come out of the first game of the season going against two rookies on the right side of the Oline with zero sacks. Did Atkins even get a QB pressure? This wasn't all dink and dunk passing either as we hit several big plays down the field in the second half.

 

There is much to improve upon but this was as good a start against that Dline as I could imagine. If we go back and do the draft all over again with 1 game's data and we choose Long at 19 and nobody will question it. Mills will never last to the 5th Rd.