RT Austin Howard visiting Colts
 

http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com...ts-with-colts/

Thoughts?

Bring him in and focus on defense in the draft.

Older guy, turned 31 on March 22nd.

Played in and started 16/16 in 2017 but only played in 24 of 32 possible games during 2015/2016 seasons.

Starting quality right OT. Not a stud but certainly someone who appears to be able to come in and do the short-term 1 year thing better than either Good or Haeg could.

Quote from an article about him being cut by Baltimore
Remember, there are 64 OTs starting every week in the NFL so 36th is not bad.

I am all for signing him in order to give us another potential quality option to build the line with. He was schedule to make an average of $5m a season under his now terminated contract and that is not too much to spend on an aging veteran like him.

Walk Worthy,

Surprised, he seems too old for Ballard, but could help us.

If he’s brought in it will likely be a very short term contract. He’d be bridge, that’s it. Ballard can’t fix all the holes in one draft. He’d be just like Slauson who I believe is 32.

Not exciting, but probably better than what we have.

I know a lot of folks do not like PFF, but comparing grades for the past couple of seasons:

2017 / 2016 / 2015

61.2 / 41.6 / 75.7 / Denzelle Good
60.9 / 67.4 / DNP / Joe Haeg
37.0 / 53.2 / DNP / Le'Raven Clark

71.6 / 67.9 / 82.6 / Austin Howard

and for comparision:

82.0 / 82.9 / 79.1 / Anthony Castonzo

Only Good's rookie year (in which he only played in 5 games) has a higher grade than Howard's lowest rated year of all our native options for right OT.

I have little doubt that Howard is a better option than our current options for right OT and gets us another year down the road to rebuilding the team.

I hope we sign him.

Walk Worthy,

I don't like to lock myself into anything. I think PFF has proven itself wrong, unreliable, and ridiculous at times. But there are times I either agree with what they say, or that it brings up something I hadn't known/heard of/thought of that prompts me to take a closer look at it.

OL play is one of the most difficult things to assess in football. Most of us don't have the time to go watch enough games to get a feel for how good a guard or tackle is outside of our team, or maybe division. PFF can be helpful in these situations as long as you use it as a tool to build understanding and not as a single complete source.

From what I am reading Ravens fans liked him well enough to want to re-sign him so they could focus on other positions in the draft. Looks like he was cut because Baltimore has cap issues. They have no one better to play RT so it was painful to do it.

It seems like the Colts have started 64 different RT's since 2012.

That sounds a bit low.

Starting right OTs since Andrew Luck was drafted:

2012:
12 – Winston Justice
04 – Jeff Linkenbach

2013:
16 – Gosder Cherilus

2014:
13 – Gosder Cherilus
03 – Joe Reitz

2015:
11 – Joe Reitz
03 – Denzelle Good
02 – Jack Mewhort

2016:
06 – Joe Reitz
06 – Joe Haeg
03 – Le’Raven Clark
01 – Austin Blythe

2017:
11 – Joe Haeg
05 – Denzelle Good

So, in summary for the last 96 games of the Colts franchise:

29 games = Gosder Cherilus
20 games = Joe Reitz
17 games = Joe Haeg
12 games = Winston Justice
08 games = Denzelle Good
04 games = Jeff Linkenbach
03 games = Le’Raven Clark
02 games = Jack Mewhort
01 games = Austin Blythe

Screaming for a long-terms starter. Screaming…

Walk Worthy,

Finding quality OT's is a big problem for the entire league. There are just not enough coming out of college. It will drive the price up in the draft. But during camp reports last year it was a reoccurring theme week-in-week out, every team was having problems with their tackle play.

Especially when you look at guys like Le'Raven Clark.

His measurables were very similiar to those of the guys picked in the 1st round (Ronnie Stanley, Jack Conklin, Laremy Turnsil, Taylor Decker) but his offensive system (Texas Tech "blurr" offense) made it so that he was NOT ready for NFL pass-pro systems.

Too many colleges are turning to "grimmick" offenses because they are effective at lower levels of comeptition but they do not prepare QBs or O-Linemen to transition seemlessly into the NFL.

Walk Worthy,

They are effective quickly. Due to the high salaries in college ball, pressure is higher than ever before to win quickly. Development has taken a backseat to easy to implement systems that players can work in right away.

Also skill development has deteriorated in the league as well. The new agreement they made with the players union limited contact so much that teams use all that time to instill the weekly gameplan. Skill development is left to the players on their free time. I'm on stampeded blue and half the people on there are convinced drafting some rookies will automatically fix the oline. Maybe Nelson will, but it will cost us a top ten pick. But draft picks don't usually have an immeediate impact, they are usually an investment in the future, especially linemen. The best chances of us improving on the oline is the offensive system change and improvement of all the draft picks we made a couple years ago.

Clark should have been permanently moved to guard very early but I think the dysfunction of the coaching staff and that short stretch of reasonable play at RT in 2016 got in the way of a good decision.