Did Grubbs's Absence Make A Difference?

[RavenousBG]

Grubbs didn't play today and he is the only O lineman besides Birk that is in the same position they were in last year. I would say he is one of the anchors for that very reason. Joe got pressure today and it affected everything. The pressure seemed to come from everywhere so I won't simply blame LeVoir but without Ben Grubbs out there, our O line may have been out of synch. That may have been where everything started. It also could be why Cam wouldn't try anything deep or overly aggressive. I didn't think about that until now. I was surprised that we didn't start Gurode but he may no know all the calls for LG either. It's just something to chew on.

[lowrider]

The entire team was terrible. The coaching was terrible. Just a terrible game. We did not come out to play in a game that we usually do come to play. It wasn't just Grubbs, but I really hope it isn't turf toe that he has.....

[The Raven]

His absence definitely had an impact in the loss, but I don't think it was the biggest impact. It was a bad game for the OL as a whole, not just Levoir.

[RavenousBG]

[quote name='The Raven' timestamp='1316400687' post='797582']
His absence definitely had an impact in the loss, but I don't think it was the biggest impact. It was a bad game for the OL as a whole, not just Levoir.
[/quote]

yeah, not just Levoir. I'm not simply blaming him at all, just saying it may start there. Cam may have been handcuffed a little bit because of this replacement.

[K-Dog]

To answer your question. Yes with out a doubt it made a difference. But like every one else said there was many other factors that contributed to todays loss.

[gabefergy]

Losing an important cog in the offense like Grubbs has a ripple effect across the entire offense. Without Grubbs we weren't able to effectively run the ball and the pass protection and overall Oline performance suffered as well. Did losing 1 player cost us the game? Absolutely not. There were breakdowns in execution across the board, but it certainly handcuffed what Cam was able to do.

The struggles on defense obviously were unrelated, but injuries definitely hurt us there as well.

[bauer77]

This was a whole team loss, but not having Grubbs out there was a huge difference. Rice even said so himself

[Gordo52]

I think so, Joe was pressured alot, made dumb decisions, couldnt establish run game, which is most important part of our offense. So yeah it made big difference. I also think that if our defense coulda applied more pressure the game would be completely different.

[Dfence4champs2052]

His absence definitely made a difference. He's a pro bowl alternate....that tells you something.

[scrock]

short answer is YES

[bmore187]

Absolutely.........we could not establish the running game because of Grubbs' absence , therefore Tennessee did not bite on any PA which we depend on a lot in our offense....they shut the pass down because they weren't worried about the run

[i82much]

Probably worse to lose an o-lineman on a road game. Not sure how much the crowd noise was a factor.

Still, we really got beaten so ridiculously thoroughly that it's hard to point to a main cause. I mean a butt whipping is a butt whipping and we took one in the teeth today.

[reediddy]

LeVoir was awful

[Radinho84]

every time you have a monster like grubbs on the field it will help your team. does that mean that those non catches would have been catches or those missed tackles would have been hard hits like week one? i don' think so. we missed him. but we should be able to win our games when one of our players goes down with an injury...

[nk02442]

which makes you wonder why we were running the ball up the middle and to the left so much. Why not run to the right side where a healthy Yanda and oher are. That used to be a bread and butter 2-3 years ago. Run the ball to our strong side and let ray make plays.

[Bltravens]

Why wasnt Gurode playing? Gurode actually has talent and was a top tier C/G for a couple of years. LeVoire couldnt crack a starting lineup...

[CorvusCorax]

[quote name='Bltravens' timestamp='1316452783' post='798177']
Why wasnt Gurode playing? Gurode actually has talent and was a top tier C/G for a couple of years. LeVoire couldnt crack a starting lineup...
[/quote]

Gurode probably doesn't know the offense well enough yet. We might see some play time with Gurode next week though if Grubbs is still out.

In response to the thread, yes Grubbs was a big loss, especially in the running game.