Hey I can't post a link because I read this in the Sun Sentinel, and not willing to pay $.99/day for online access, also am not a premium member at PFF so maybe someone can check this out and provide a link please.
In the SSentinel article on Olivier Vernon they mentioned his progress can't be all because of poor play by Martin at LT during practice, as PFF has Martin ranked 2nd in the league in preseason games at the LT position. I know it's only 2-3 PS games, but maybe Martin might be turning out like Philbin and Ireland hoped and obviously bet he would when they went DL at #3 this draft. And left LT almost completely alone in the draft, with the only possible exception being Dallas Thomas.
I must admit I have been pleasantly surprised at Martin's play vs. Jags and Texans, though Texans didn't play Watts and Jags DL isn't exactly a juggernaut.
If this is true, maybe our worries are not as bad as many of us think. Thoughts/links please.
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As long as he keeps it up when teams are game planning. However, he could be worse, its encouraging.
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But yeah, I'll be interested in how he performs against Tampa. Hopefully, I'm not too distracted by right guard play.PhinsRock likes this. -
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He's gotten better, he's taking the fundamentals he's working on and applying them in real game situations, his hand punch has been talked about a lot by folks including all of his coaches, I'm seeing better, more aggressive, better timed hand punch technique, it's by no means perfect, but it's better, his balance is still the main issue for me, he gets knocked off it on to many occasions to have complete trust from the blindside, but it's better than last year, he's attacking his defender first, you will see a lot of times he's initiating the first move by going forward to attack which I feel is helping his overall game, he's far from being a good left tackle, but average this year is reasonable I think.
This is a player that learned a lot of bad habits while playing with Andrew luck, he got spoiled by the brilliance of lucks pocket prescense and quickness to deliver, and escapability, I believe they are retraining him from scratch and for good reason..
Personally I didnt think he could improve as much as I've seen him thus far, so I was wrong on how far down the floor was on his upside...he's very quick out of his stance so he's got good anticipation there, he can run and locate to the 2nd level, and hes a pretty good cut blocker, I really do feel it's all about his balance and staying centered into his opponent, if he can continue to find his balance and mirroring skills he might be ok there..I see development and that's a good sign.GMJohnson, PhinsRock, cuchulainn and 1 other person like this.