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.