Tag: zach martin

Should the Texans have made a trade for former All-Pro guard at deadline?

The Houston Texans remained quiet at the NFL trade deadline, but could you imagine if they added an All-Pro guard?

The Houston Texans remained quiet as 3 p.m. rolled around Tuesday afternoon’s trade deadline.

Almost too quiet for a franchise sitting at 6-3 and in the hunt for a top-two seed in the AFC. Outside of sending Cam Akers to the Minnesota Vikings and Khalil Davis to the San Francisco 49ers, Houston stayed out of talks.

Should that be the case? Fans disagreed with general manager Nick Caserio’s decision to remain pat instead of fixing the offensive line. Several analysts agree, stating that Houston’s interior trench play needs a new face if quarterback C.J. Stroud plans to survive through the 2024 regular season.

Bleacher Report’s Brad Gagnon mentioned that the Texans should have inquired about a deal built around Dallas Cowboys All-Pro offensive lineman Zack Martin, especially with Kenyon Green out for the remainder of the regular season.

“The aging and expensive Zack Martin may be nearing the end of his time days in Dallas if the team undergoes a reset soon,” Gagnon wrote. “In-state neighbor Houston would have made a lot of sense as a landing spot for Martin. The Texans were already a mess along the offensive line even before losing starter Kenyon Green to a season-ending shoulder injury. Second-year quarterback C.J. Stroud needs more protection and support, and the interior line needs more talent in general. Martin could have brought that to the table as well as veteran leadership for a team that is quite young but expects to contend this year.”

Sitting a 3-5, Dallas must win its next four games to finish above .500 without Dak Prescott. The Pro Bowl quarterback is on injured reserve and won’t be cleared to return until after Dec. 1.

In Houston, Martin would pair next to All-Pro tackle Laremy Tunsil, thus leaving Tytus Howard out at right tackle while giving ample secondary reps for Blake Fisher to learn the position.

The Texans now must turn to either Jarrett Patterson or Kendrick Green in pace of Kenyon Green following his season-ending shoulder injury. Both have struggled in pass protection when on the field working with the first-team offense.

Houston returns to NRG Stadium for a  Sunday Night Football showdown in Week 10 against the Detroit Lions.

Behind Enemy Lines: Week 10 Q&A with Cowboys Wire

With a Week 10 matchup between the New York Giants and Dallas Cowboys on tap, we go behind enemy lines for a chat with Cowboys Wire.

The New York Giants (2-7) and Dallas Cowboys (5-3) will square off on Sunday afternoon in a Week 10 matchup at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas.

The Giants opened the week as 15.5-point home underdogs but that has improved to +17 as of this writing.

With this matchup on tap, Giants Wire took the opportunity to hold a Q&A with Cowboys Wire managing editor KD Drummond.

Notre Dame star highest graded Power Five offensive lineman per PFF

Is he the best offensive lineman in college football?

Notre Dame has a long history of being referred to as “O-Line U”.  Names like [autotag]Quenton Nelson[/autotag], [autotag]Ronnie Stanley[/autotag], and [autotag]Zach Martin[/autotag] are just some of the recent stars that have gone on to successful NFL careers after dominating with the Irish.  Notre Dame offensive line coach [autotag]Harry Hiestand[/autotag] gets well-deserved praise for helping develop talent at a truly elite level but Notre Dame’s offensive line successes predate his arrival.

For all you youngsters out there, look up the name Joe Moore.  Just know that all those run-heavy teams that thrived under Lou Holtz were guided by offensive lines coached by Moore.  He’s also the man that the team award for the best offensive line in college football goes to annually.

Enough with the history lesson for now and back to regularly scheduled programming.

Pro Football Focus released their top-five graded Power Five offensive linemen in 2022 through Week 10’s games.  If you’ve watched Notre Dame’s offensive line in 2022 you won’t be surprised to see who checked out first overall.

NFL draft history: Every No. 16 overall pick since 2000

NFL Draft history: Looking at every No. 16 overall pick selected since the 2000 NFL Draft and the Eagles chances of landing an impact player

The Eagles need impact players on both sides of the ball and with three first-round picks in April’s draft, Howie Roseman will have his best opportunity ever to add game-changing players to the roster.

After missing on picks like Jalen Reagor and J.J. Arcega-Whiteside, Roseman is under pressure to not waste assets or opportunities while attempting to be the smartest man in the room.

Philadelphia currently has the 15th, 16th, and 19th overall picks and we’ll take a look at some of the impact players and draft bust that were selected with the 16th pick.

Three former Notre Dame players make the NFL’s Pro Bowl Teams

Who made it?

The Irish have a long history of sending fantastic players to the NFL and having a big amount of success. Today, the NFL released their Pro Bowl teams for the AFC and the NFC. There weren’t as many former Irish names as we would have liked to see, but there were still some Pro Bowl stalwarts that made the team’s. Find out below which former Notre Dame players are going to Las Vegas.

ON SITE: How will absences affect Cowboys in opener against Buccaneers?

USA TODAY Sports reporter Jori Epstein looks at how the absences of several key players will affect the Dallas Cowboys against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

[mm-video type=video id=01ff5rhzyhcdv03xatsd playlist_id=none player_id=01evcg1x9ny8tb834m image=https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/video/thumbnail/mmplus/01ff5rhzyhcdv03xatsd/01ff5rhzyhcdv03xatsd-cd26f8a5064e66e2d860b4ac3e6be43f.jpg]

The Dallas Cowboys open the 2021 NFL season against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers Thursday at Raymond James Stadium but will do so without star G Zach Martin. USA TODAY Sports reporter Jori Epstein looks at how his absence will affect the underdog visitors in the first episode of ON SITE.

The Cowboys are 8.5-point underdogs at Tipico Sportsbook. Check out our Cowboys at Buccaneers picks and predictions after watching the video.

Also see: Cowboys-Buccaneers prop bets

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Does a certain stat validate Notre Dame’s status as O-Line U?

A stat brought to light by Pro Football Focus shows why Notre Dame should be at the top of the O-Line U rankings.

Plenty of schools argue back and forth which team has sent the best talent from their universities off to the NFL. There was an interesting stat that Pro Football Focus brought to light recently that should give Notre Dame fans plenty of ammo to fight off those other schools as to who produces the best offensive line talent into the NFL.

The number of snaps played is a great indicator of talent, especially along the O-Line where there aren’t many stats to back-up performance. Multiple former Notre Dame linemen stars including Quenton Nelson, Sam Mustipher, Mike McGlinchey and Zach Martin are huge forces for their NFL teams.

Not only that, we should see each of the four NFL Draft eligible (Liam Eichenberg, Robert Hainsey, Tommy Kraemer and Aaron Banks) ultimately hear their names being called in late April.

Jarrett Patterson will also hear his name getting called when he leaves South Bend and surely some of the younger players like Tosh Baker, Blake Fisher, Rocco Spindler and Zeke Correll should make it to the next level as well.

It’s safe to say that for the time being, Notre Dame holds the mantle of O-Line U.

Who is Notre Dame’s best offensive player of the last 20 years?

ACC Network named the best offensive players of the last 20 years. Which Notre Dame players did they debate between and who do you pick/?

Anyone up for a pointless debate today?

Ok, good.

Me too.

While scrolling Twitter on Friday morning I stumbled into a list that they put together on the ACC Network’s “Packer and Durham” show that take a look back at the last 20 years of ACC football.

The two compiled their lists of the best offensive players the ACC has seen since 2000 as they named one player for each of the current member programs.

Now before you get angry, yes, I too realize that Notre Dame hasn’t been an official member of the ACC until this year.

That applies to other teams such as Boston College, Louisville, Miami, Pitt and Syracuse who all weren’t playing in the ACC at the start of this century, either.

Here is who Mark Packer and Wes Durham both chose as their best offensive players from each ACC football program since 2000.

Fun names on this list, no doubt, but the vast majority of these are no-brainers which takes away some of the fun of debating.

Luckily for us Notre Dame’s is one of the schools where there wasn’t an obvious choice, at least between these two who were deciding.

As you can see, Packer choose Brady Quinn while Durham went with Quenton Nelson, both of which are worthy of the praise.

Statistically speaking, nobody puts up better numbers than Brady Quinn.  He’s thrown for more yards, more touchdowns and led Notre Dame to consecutive BCS appearances at a time when it look like the Fighting Irish football program was headed to irrelevance.

There are a ton of players that you can mention that didn’t get named by either, as well.  

Golden Tate won a Belitnikoff and despite the win-loss record during his time not being where anyone would have liked, was a legend and a thrill to watch each Saturday, specifically in 2008 and 2009.

Michael Floyd was similiar to that as well. Maybe his style of play wasn’t as exciting as Tate’s but his production was truly elite.  Will Fuller also comes to mind as do others, as some might argue that Jeff Samardzija was just as good as either.

Josh Adams nearly became a Heisman Trophy finalist and seemed like he was putting up over a 50 yard run each week for some time.

And the countless lineman that have come through and been stars whether it be Ronnie Stanley, Zach or Nick Martin or Mike McGlinchey.

But I’m with Durham on this one.

When you look at Notre Dame football over the last 20 years, who was simply the best player?

It may not be the most exciting position but you can argue that very few dominated their position in the last 20 years like Nelson dominated at offensive guard, specifically in 2017.

Nelson was nearly flawless by the time he left the program after 2017, much of the reason he became the highest drafted offensive guard in the history of the NFL Draft.

It’s not what he’s done with the Indianapolis Colts that puts him on the top of the list for me, but his complete dominance of the position while at Notre Dame.

When you go back and look at Quenton Nelson you see what was easily the best player at the position not just in terms of the Irish, but as dominating as any guard has been in college football has been in quite some time.

Nelson gets my imaginary vote.  Who gets yours?

ESPN updates Position U’s, Find out where Notre Dame landed

The Irish place very well inside the updated rankings, but not quite where you would expect them to.

Now that NFL training camps have started back up, we are all getting a look at some teams roster constructions. With that, ESPN has updated their Position U rankings after gathering data from their Sports and Information group along with numbers from Pro Football Reference.

The Irish have placed in their rankings, although not in the top spot for any positions. Notre Dame placed 9th in Wide Receivers, 5th in Tight Ends and 7th in Offensive Line groups. It might seem like the analysts at ESPN got some of the rankings wrong, especially at tight end, but they do give some sound reasoning.

They did not mention much at ball regarding the production of former Irish wide receivers, but the group is very solid. Golden Tate, Will Fuller, Equanimeous St. Brown, Miles Boykin and Chase Claypool make up a fantastic collection of Notre Dame alumni receivers. Claypool has been shown very well so far and that ranking could be on the rise from 9th.

This next group, the tight ends, seems a bit low given the production from the group has been top-notch. The top spot went to Miami, the U, who boasts an quite a lot of quality players, as they have had 10 drafted in the last 20 years, with half of them going in the first round. They note that the Irish have “Cole Kmet was the first tight end taken in this years draft, and the Irish have had a tight end selected for three straight years.” Alize Mack and Durham Smythe were those two other players. As we know the position is stacked right now with tons of talent, but it’s hard to argue with Miami production the last 20 years. All time is a different conversation, however.

The offensive line helped the Irish get to 7th, but that ranking also could be on the move upwards as ESPN ranked them as who’s next. “There’s a strong case to be made that Notre Dame has produced the NFL best current tackle (Ronnie Stanley) and guard (Quenton Nelson) over the past five drafts. Add in Pro-Bowler Zach Martin, and NFL starters Nick Martin and Mike McGlinchey, and what the Irish might lack in quantity, they more than make up for in quality.”

The Irish didn’t make the defensive line group’s rankings but the did make their who’s missing. ESPN noted that “the Irish failed to produce a true impact player at the next level.” This is an area where an improvement is drastically needed.

As a whole collective group, the Irish did great inside the updated Positional U rankings. The upside is there for movement in the future and could very well be happening.

Jason Kelce lands in the top-3 of a ranking of the NFL’s top 25 interior offensive linemen

Jason Kelce lands in the top-3 of a ranking of the NFL’s top 25 interior offensive linemen

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Jason Kelce continues to get better with time and the top center in the NFL is finally getting his due among the top overall linemen in football.

Pro Football Focus recently ranked the top-25 interior linemen in the NFL and the gnarly veteran landed at No. 3 on the list behind Zach Martin and Quenton Nelson.

After coming into the league as a sixth-round selection out of Cincinnati, Kelce has turned into arguably the best center in the league — and that’s exactly where he comes in on this list. He’s not in the same league as someone like Rodney Hudson when it comes to pass protection, but Kelce does do a good job of keeping the quarterback upright. Where he really differentiates himself, though, is in his ability to get out in space and maintain blocks in the running game.

Kelce is a three-time Pro Bowler coming off his third straight first-team All-Pro season, ranking as PFF’s top-graded center, both overall and in run-blocking, in 2019.