Clary, why is he still here???

[Stinky Wizzleteats+]

[Steve]

Alternative hypothesis: Maybe PFF does a horrible job of grading OL, and that their grades don't realistically reflect what teams think of him.

[Stinky Wizzleteats+]

So bad he is, yet still has trade value??

[MakoShark]

Alternative hypothesis: Maybe PFF does a horrible job of grading OL, and that their grades don't realistically reflect what teams think of him.

Maybe we should ban PFF grades from being mentioned on the board. Or at least ban them from use as fortification to any opinion or point trying to be made.

[SDFan]

damn those intangibles! This is about salary man!

[Steve]

I have a subscription to their site, and they do have some good stuff there. But they freely admit that they know nothing about OL/DL play, and they make no effort to try to grade based on what the guy is doing. They claim that all they do is look at results, but I don't understand how they can do that if they don't understand what the blocker or the scheme is trying to accomplish, which means knowing the techniques.

It cuts both ways with us. Dunlap was given a really high grade for his run blocking, and I think it is too generous. He has a decent grade for several games, and in many of them he does an excellent job at the point of attack. But Dunlap still struggles to cutoff pursuit backside, and often our ball carrier is caught from behind, or cannot cut back to the backside because Dunlap missed his block, yet it doesn't seem to account for that. And then how meaningful is his run blocking grade, since later in the season, we ran left much more to the left, so we were deliberately minimizing the impact of his bad backside blocking by making him the frontside. The stats won't show his backside protection problems, because we deliberately stopped calling them, so there needs to be some way to weight all players skills equally.

[Fleet]

I think he and Hardwick are the leaders of the OL. And thats pretty damn important. I remember how close Goff and the guys were and they seemed to play better as a unit. Offensive Linemen have that band of brothers outlook when they are close and respect each other. The unit played as one body last year and i think Clary and Hardwicks leadership had a part in that. He may be worth only 2.5 million as far as play goes. But the rest of his salary is worth it due to his leadership and how much the young/new olinemen respect him.

I think its the reason why McCoy seemed so upset that Clary had to miss the Denver playoff game. He knows how important it was to him and his OL. They looked lost without him.

I dont want to see what happens with someone else in there at this point. Not unless we know for sure his replacement is on the roster. And i dont see one. In fact i think hes probably worth extending a few years at close to 3 million per. Still bring in OL as depth and potential replacements for Hardwick and Rhinehart. The way our OL is situated right now is actually pretty perfect for this draft as far as value goes. We can get good players on the OL in the 4th round and groom them. Maybe a little higher for an OT.

[Beerman]

You guys can criticize PFF, but footballoutsiders raw stats supports their claims particularly in run blocking.

[blueman]

What fans are scratching their heads?

[bonehead]

What fans are scratching their heads?

Clary Fans

[Steve]

Not necessarily. It suggests that the we have a problem running to the right, but is that the fact that we cannot run behind Clary or that Clary may do OK and that the backside of the play is not blocked well? And it lumps the whole season together, it doesn't discriminate for who was blocking where and when.

But again, is it Clary that is the problem, or is it something else? When I watch him, he is not great, but solid. The assumption is that since PFF gives him a horrible grade that he is awful, and I don't see that. And if he is not awful, is he really being paid out of line with what other similar players are? But that all revolves around how good a player he is, and the PFF grade doesn't seem to give with my observations of him and other players.

[Beerman]

He's only poorly graded as a run blocker, which IMO is warranted. He was just fine in pass protection and a big reason he's still with the team.