You’re right that there needs to be a replacement plan in place for Flozell—probably not in 2009, but at least someone to push for the job by 2010. I fully expect Flo to rebound nicely this year—his less-than-stellar 2008 can be attributed to injuries and the revolving door that was beside him at LG. Correct the LG troubles and you’ll see Flo as a top-10 tackle for another year or two.

I’m not so quick to write off Doug Free just yet—we haven’t seen anything out of him, but as you said, LT’s take a year or two to develop and we have no reason to think he’s not developing right on schedule. Speculation of poor progress because he didn’t take over the swing-tackle backup spot or at LG is unfounded. Free’s not built like a guard and he’s never played RT, so that’s sufficient reason to keep McQ as the swing tackle. The only cause for concern so far might be that the coaches didn’t use Free to give Flo some time off this year when he had a bum arm—but that’s explainable as well since they were already using replacements at LG so why take a chance when Flo could do a serviceable job.

Free is still the future at LT, until the coaches say differently by drafting another one.

Finding a G to replace Kosier is the most immediate need, because he’s coming off an injury, is the smallest of their linemen and is nearing the end of his contract.

C takes priority simply because any quality OT ranked high will likely go in the 1st. OTs rise, Cs and Gs drop. Dallas doesn’t have a 1st round pick. You match the talent to the board and C looks like a definite match. Also, name the OL most in need of replacement? Cory Proctor, hands down. We’ve seen him struggle at C in ’07 when Gurode got hurt and at G when Kosier went down.

OT last because Free has not yet proven he’s a bust. He regressed last year but so did all the young OL. Proctor and McQuistan already have three years on their records. Free has two.

So I agree, LT is a need, but not the biggest need. Flozell can still play at a high level when he’s healthy. And Free might find his Houck legs this year. I certainly hope so.

If Flozell totally crumbles out there I would rather just throw Free into the fire rather than what I think they might do which is moving Davis to LT. That would be horrible.

I was comparing Free to previous young talented tackles we had who slid to guard when the opportunity was there. However, those guys, like Flo and Page, were much thicker than Free, who is more of a Tuinei build. So maybe he is progressing along just fine. Although you’d think if you had a 2nd year guy talented enough to man the LT spot that he’d see some playing time w/ the injuries we had this year. He couldn’t have been worse than Proctor right?

I’m not trying to push him out the door, its too hard to find a LT. I can deal w/ the penalties even.

My worry is that he’s always been just barely fast enough to deal w/ speed rushers, and this year he seemed to get beaten around the edge a lot more. I know some of that was the injury, but it happened before and after the injury had healed. Flozell doesn’t have the quickness to lose half a step and still succeed.

At 34, never known for being a workout guy, it might be near the end of the road at LT, although he could probably serve as a RT for a while longer. Could Colombo play guard?

Columbo was definitely Parcell’s best personnel find, right after Ratliff of course.

correlates to the games when Kosier was out. He was having to make up for how weak Cory Proctor is.

I think this was also true of Andre Gurode. When Kosier was in, he was great. Once Proctor stepped in, not so good any more.

Hey, you’re on a roll today. Seriously, we did move Larry Allen over to guard when we brought in Flo. I know it won’t happen, but Jordan Gross is high on my wish list.