| 26 August 2009
Steve Vallos was on Brock and Salk yesterday for a quick interview, and the guys asked him pretty directly how the line was doing. Vallos said that, while the line is not at full strength, he thinks it is better than generally believed, and that the zone blocking system is about tempo and wearing down the defense, not about breaking 20 yard runs from play one.
The nature of zone blocking is a grind-'em-out one: you might only be getting 2-3 yards for much of the first quarter, but you are mostly trying to set up the play-action pass. By the second and third quarter, the defense is starting to get pissed from the cut blocks and a little bit tired (and sore). The idea is that by the third and fourth quarter, you will have worn down the defense enough that they are going to be making mental mistakes, They might take a bad angle at one point, or just not have the strength to close the hole the offense just made quick enough. We have not seen the first team play much, and when we did see them go a full half on Saturday, Julius Jones was not in and Duckett gave a cut-worthy performance.
Brock Huard agreed with this assertion, harkening back to his days as a backup at Indianapolis. He was excited to see the running game in action as the backup QB, and was shocked at how poorly it worked throughout the preseason. One yard, two yards, what the hell? By week one and two though, boom! It was going. This Seahawks team is not that Colts team, and we shouldn't expect it to be after a 4-12 season, but I think we all need to step back a hair and realize that we don't necessarily understand how this system is supposed to work throughout the course of a game or a season.
The bottom line is that we don't know how well our line will perform this year. We do know that the interior, while a bit of a hodge-podge, is filled with experienced zone blocking guys. Vallos, Wrotto and Unger all played extensively in the system in college and have all looked solid in the preseason. Locklear is a big question mark at LT, but lets not decide he's terrible after one poor performance in the preseason. Willis will be solid on the right side so long as his knee holds up.
If all else fails, we'll just put Nick Reed in at LT.
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