Yeah - that elbow just snapping back into place seemed pretty sketch.

Unless it was just an odd sort of elbow injury that isn't common, those are repetitive stress things that even w/ PRP are still ticking timebombs. I mean if he had as much as a significant enough strain of that UCL to be as compromised as he was that season, I just don't see how 4 months rest healed it.

They don't just heal. Sometimes you can manage them to where they improve a little and don't get much worse, but his arm was suddenly completely sound again. Man - that don't happen.

That or he overplayed the injury. It's possible he was just burnt out in NE and leaked a 'justification' for his pedestrian efforts there down the stretch. I mean Brady's people are still claiming he played the 2020 season on a fully torn MCL that he suffered the season before and just didn't bother to get fixed or something.

They love concocting narratives for the guy. Even when they don't make any sense.
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It would be nice to have a Spencer Brown type that could be both a developmental LT/swing AND your starting RT.
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I feel like Niang was that guy. He's just had too many injuries and the opt out didn't help.

If they were fully committed to Brown long-term they'd have gotten a deal done last off-season. I think they saw Niang as a possible Brown replacement in a couple of years as he really does occasionally flash all the skills you want from a RT.

It just didn't work out. And with a severe knee injury that will likely impact his off-season and 2022 as well (patella injuries are bad news) you almost have to write him off and accept anything you DO get as an unexpected bonus.
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Yeah, you know how I am about guys with that many injuries. I've all but written off Niang at this point. It remains to be seen if he can even get on the field consistently, let alone excel.
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Lines up in the position of left tackle and is considered a left tackle by those smarter in football than me but I can tell he is indeed a left tackle and that's the position he plays.


Misleading title or dyslexic idk.




There is not one left tackle in the league that hasn't given up sacks and there was only one Willie Roaf so if not putting up 400 yards and 5 touchdowns isn't good enough to keep people happy then they are just miserable fucks.


Brown is still young and can improve on pass protection no matter what anyone else says here because you are not him or the coaches.
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Spencer Brown was always going to be good (saw him a lot at UNI; great kid). He was taken with the pick right before the 3rd rounder that would have been ours, if not shipped to Baltimore. I always wished we could have moved up somehow, but that wasn't likely to happen.

His former teammate, Trevor Penning, could be even better. I imagine he'll fly up draft boards.
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Health is a skill. You look at the shots that Hill and especially Kelce have taken and its obvious that there's just something different about those guys bodies that allows them to play this game at this level and keep answering the bell.

In many ways there's a selection bias that keeps guys that can't stay healthy from even making it to this level. They get dinged in ways that hamper their development in HS or College and simply never maximize their potential so they never get a look at this level.

But some just have such freakish natural ability that they still keep progressing even with the injuries. Or they're just a little MORE healthy so they manage to keep going until bigger, stronger, faster guys are hitting them week in, week out.

Being able to get out here is every bit the skill that running fast or throwing hard is. And like any other skill, you can do things to maximize what natural abilities you have in that area but you can't just create it from whole cloth.

It seems pretty likely that Niang just doesn't have that skill. Sucks, but hell - most guys that don't wouldn't have even made it this far.
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I've heard Penning is a 2nd rounder, maybe a high 2nd rounder. He's a very intriguing prospect.
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What is interesting to me is that several people pointed out his "skinny legs" this past offseason - that he seemed to have some disproportionality between his lower and upper bodies.

That certainly seems to be part of the issue, now that we've seen him sustain multiple injuries "below the waist" the last 3 years.
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He'll go in the first. I can almost guarantee it. Once people see him at the combine and pro day, he's going to fly up the boards. Spencer Brown's success isn't going to hurt him, either.
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Yeah, he should ace the individual workouts. I could see him going late 1st for sure if he does well in Indy.
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They gave a 1 for him less than a year ago. He isn't going anywhere like it or not.
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Another thing with going a differnet direction, is it's gonna take atleast a draft pick. Potentially more because you're gonna wanna trade up to get a LT. So that's gonna subtract cheap labor draft picks from other areas of the team.

Or you can use money, sign a known product thats 25 and could still improve to whatever level you wanna say, and use those draft picks to find you a pass rusher or a WR>
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I mean the obvious alternative seems to be Terron Armstead, right? The Saints don't seem to be in a position to tag him so he'll likely see FA.

I don't think he'll get Williams money - but he'll get close. And he's a little more of a fit for what the offense wants to do; better pass blocker and more athletic than Brown, for sure.

So let's say you can get Brown moved for a 2 and sign Armstead. But that Brown can be had for 5 years, $105 million at 26 years old while Armstead will cost, say, 4 years and $95 million at 31 yrs old.

I think you probably upgrade at the position for the remainder of this run. But Armstead has a much shakier health history than Brown and that can't be ignored. Especially with the backup LT situation being on shaky ground here. Your average annual cap hit is almost certainly higher, maybe by 20%. And you're bringing in a descending player rather than an ascending one.

Doesn't that kinda paint the picture of how valuable Brown actually is to us? Even if you replace him with damn near a best case scenario alternative on the free agent market, there are REAL drawbacks. I don't even know if I have a 'right' answer here - if you really can get a 2 for Brown, it may not be a bad idea to do that swap. But you're really playing with fire given Armstead's tendency to get dinged up.

I'd take 16 games from Brown over 10 games from Armstead. The fall off at LT is just too big and Brown has been largely healthy in his career.
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Not really. We did give up our first rounder (and other things), but we also got their 2nd rounder back in the trade.

How do you think we were able to draft Nick Bolton?
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