Who's More Important: Moss or Samuels

[Schneed10]

Originally Posted by GTripp0012

The answer is Samuels. Without Moss, the deep pass leaves the offense, but that can be overcome. Without Samuels, the deep pass leaves the offense, as well as running the ball to the left, and also converting on third downs.

I do agree that you lose a ton trying to run to the left without Samuels, which has absolutely been our bread and butter.

But do you really lose that much in pass protection with Heyer? Samuels is better, no doubt. But I can't use just the Detroit game to judge Heyer at LT. He's done a real good job at times when pass blocking, albeit from the right side most of the time. I guess I'm saying you take a step down from Samuels to Heyer in pass protection, but I don't think you develop a complete weak link there.

So I don't think the deep pass automatically goes bye bye with Samuels out. But I think losing the success in running to the left that all by itself makes Samuels more important than Moss. We friggin gut teams when we run left, it's how Portis has gotten most of his yardage (which leads the friggin league).

Tonight, I think a Samuels absence would CRUSH us (their pass rush is insane and their run D is already good enough with Heyer's ineptitude there to aid them). Over the long haul, Samuels's absence would hurt more than Moss, but only slightly.