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Been trying to formulate exactly how I feel about this whole Demby situation, and it's kind of complicated tbh as you'll see below. Also there's a lot of polarization among the horned faithful with him, not so much here but elsewhere, for similar reasons, so I wanted to try to have some open discussion where we don't light the dude on fire. And obviously we might get Blythe back sooner than later, but with his FA looming and the unlikeliness of him being signed long-term I do think this is a conversation that might go into the offseason if someone doesn't step up (which I hope is not the case). At the very least behind closed doors I have to think Kromer's gameplan is to identify the next guy up not only for this season but for the playoffs as well as the future of the line. So anyway here goes nuthin loool...
1. Demby seems to be in this role due to his knowledge of the offense. He's been around with familiarity of the scheme and coaches long enough that the comfort level is there. Fans don't like how he played in preseason (and I am among them) but as Kromer pointed out this week in his press conference the guy was moved all over the joint in order to help prepare him for being the first lineman off the bench and that has plenty of drawbacks.
2. Perception of Demby's upside is different among fans than what Kromer is seeing. I am used to Kromer being right so currently I feel like I'm on crazy pills. Because I am not seeing a guy who gives me confidence that he's going to improve all that much. And that makes me look at the other options like Edwards and Evans who have a ton of potential between them and think that their upside is going to be much more. But back to Demby, I am willing to consider that maybe he does have some upside I'm not seeing on the film.
3. His best position is going to be OG. He is probably not going to play OT at this level and in fact I doubt he would have come in the game as first player off the bench for Hav for example. Of course we don't know the truth on that and whether or not that's true the need right now is RG until we get some kind of information on Blythe's status.
4. I am going to make an assumption here that both Edwards & Evans don't know the playbook well enough. If Edwards did, I would think he'd be in that mix like Boom was for us last season but obviously he's not at that level just yet and that's ok. And between the two of them I also assume Edwards is still ahead, although I would love to hear some rumblings about them liking Evans' progress behind the scenes. This is all guesswork of course as we are not privy to their progress. Also it is possible that the Rams are not high on either of them, and are making the best of a bad situation. My eyes during preseason lead me to think that's not true wrt Edwards but who knows.
5. I find myself wondering about the injuries in Sunday's game and how they might have affected things. Blythe was injured before Higs I think, going off memory here, so it's unlikely they wanted to reserve Edwards for TE duties in the event McVay wanted to run 12 personnel looks and mash the run game. Just throwing out things I've been thinkin about.
6. Last point here is that I don't believe a damn thing the Rams' staff says when it comes to players who don't play well. Demby we all know struggled in the game, just like he struggled in preseason. Rams talked him up and that's one thing I like about the org. But the talk and the moves are often two completely different things. So while I tend to think going back to point 2 that Kromer sees the right stuff in Demby, I am not sure about it.
Boiling it down I have to think the game vs the Browns is going to clear things up (assuming Blythe isn't ready to go). If the disconnect is that Kromer thinks Demby has more upside than the rest of us, then he's gonna start and hopefully continue to improve going forward. If it's that our two rooks don't quite have a good enough grasp of the playbook, we might see one of them get the nod with a week of practice and prep with the gameplan under their belt. And obtw at this point I have zero idea who's been getting the snaps in practice, because why would the media ask about that when they can ask about how the Saints got screwed over by another penalty right?
1. Demby seems to be in this role due to his knowledge of the offense. He's been around with familiarity of the scheme and coaches long enough that the comfort level is there. Fans don't like how he played in preseason (and I am among them) but as Kromer pointed out this week in his press conference the guy was moved all over the joint in order to help prepare him for being the first lineman off the bench and that has plenty of drawbacks.
2. Perception of Demby's upside is different among fans than what Kromer is seeing. I am used to Kromer being right so currently I feel like I'm on crazy pills. Because I am not seeing a guy who gives me confidence that he's going to improve all that much. And that makes me look at the other options like Edwards and Evans who have a ton of potential between them and think that their upside is going to be much more. But back to Demby, I am willing to consider that maybe he does have some upside I'm not seeing on the film.
3. His best position is going to be OG. He is probably not going to play OT at this level and in fact I doubt he would have come in the game as first player off the bench for Hav for example. Of course we don't know the truth on that and whether or not that's true the need right now is RG until we get some kind of information on Blythe's status.
4. I am going to make an assumption here that both Edwards & Evans don't know the playbook well enough. If Edwards did, I would think he'd be in that mix like Boom was for us last season but obviously he's not at that level just yet and that's ok. And between the two of them I also assume Edwards is still ahead, although I would love to hear some rumblings about them liking Evans' progress behind the scenes. This is all guesswork of course as we are not privy to their progress. Also it is possible that the Rams are not high on either of them, and are making the best of a bad situation. My eyes during preseason lead me to think that's not true wrt Edwards but who knows.
5. I find myself wondering about the injuries in Sunday's game and how they might have affected things. Blythe was injured before Higs I think, going off memory here, so it's unlikely they wanted to reserve Edwards for TE duties in the event McVay wanted to run 12 personnel looks and mash the run game. Just throwing out things I've been thinkin about.
6. Last point here is that I don't believe a damn thing the Rams' staff says when it comes to players who don't play well. Demby we all know struggled in the game, just like he struggled in preseason. Rams talked him up and that's one thing I like about the org. But the talk and the moves are often two completely different things. So while I tend to think going back to point 2 that Kromer sees the right stuff in Demby, I am not sure about it.
Boiling it down I have to think the game vs the Browns is going to clear things up (assuming Blythe isn't ready to go). If the disconnect is that Kromer thinks Demby has more upside than the rest of us, then he's gonna start and hopefully continue to improve going forward. If it's that our two rooks don't quite have a good enough grasp of the playbook, we might see one of them get the nod with a week of practice and prep with the gameplan under their belt. And obtw at this point I have zero idea who's been getting the snaps in practice, because why would the media ask about that when they can ask about how the Saints got screwed over by another penalty right?
