WestCoastRam
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- Nov 17, 2014
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Great point about Sullivan helping Goff early.Center relates strongly to QB. I think that's one thing that is commonly overlooked when the position is discussed.
IF you have an inexperienced QB then a Center who can make great line calls is worth his weight in gold. We saw that with Sullivan in the early McVay years when Goff was running the offense. Goff was not ready to run all that stuff at the line. So Sullivan had enormous impact even though his best years were in his rear view. And if you know you will be drafting a QB and running a young one in coming years then having a Center hit his peak during that moment the young QB takes over would of course be immensely valuable.
So using the Rams as an example here if you were planning on going away from Stafford in let's say 2025, and you're thinking of taking a QB this year in the draft and expecting him to take over after a redshirt year (or simply taking one next year in the draft), then you will prioritize the position more.
IF on the other hand you have a seasoned vet who has a grasp of those line calls and pre-snap read mastery in general, as Stafford does have, then Center quality is much less important. You just need a guy who can hold up well enough physically in the middle, which is easy to accomplish if your guards are strong. Which by extension means that Guard is more important that Center, in this case RG since it is potentially an area of need depending on Dotson.
No idea what they're thinking with QB. I can guess that they envision Stafford for two more seasons. But they may want to be ready for a younger signal caller at some point, and may be ready to take a guy like Penix or Nix or whoever else they might prefer. If that is the case then we're probably looking at two picks that I'd rather have used on defense used on offense. Which would annoy me greatly. But it would be a QB and a Center in those first three rounds if that were the case. The Center would then need to be of decent quality mentally and project to being able to at least help out with the calls.
And center does relate strongly to QB play but guard is far more important to keeping pressure up the middle from disrupting QB play.
Here's an interesting thought experiment. Who was more valuable to their QB, to their team? Roger Saffold or John Sullivan the years they played together.
I will say, if we get a dominate center, forget line calls, it should allow us to do some fun things schematically offensively when it comes to the screen and run game.