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Message: [QUOTE="RF2044, post: 130973, member: 40"] The OL issues went way beyond Macky. WAY beyond. In fact, I'd say that he was maybe the third biggest trouble spot, with Hay / Chibane performing even worse. That's the issue--there is no one single cause / magic bullet thing to correct, it was a systemic issue with OL execution that was the problem. In other words, you might be able to compensate for one weak leak--but three? No chance. Frankly, I'm not sure what to make of Macky. Two highly knowledgeable football posters from the board that I trust have widely different opinions. CIL thinks he is more than adequate, and just needs to add some size / strength, but otherwise didn't perform poorly. But J.O. thinks he is decidedly subpar, and only a starter because Marrone feels some weird sense of obligation-based loyalty to Coach Mac. My fear is that Macky is somewhere in the middle--that his upside is to be the second coming of Justin Outten. A gamer, a smart kid, a hard worker, but just someone who is physically overmatched playing at this level. Hope he proves me wrong. To your other point, I don't disagree that we could have shown some more creativity with play calling / formations, but the flip side of that argument is that we're not in practice, and that the coaches have a better idea about what the team can execute or be reasonably expected to execute, and what needs to be done to compensate for flaws / breakdowns [like poor OL play]. And that made us tremendously one-dimensional and easily defended. We had to be the most predictable team to defend this past year--precisely because there were only a handful of things we could execute reasonably well. All opposing defenses had to do was account for those handful of plays and make sure that they were defended, and the offense would stall. [/QUOTE]

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