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"Hard to Find a Better Right Tackle in Football than Tristan Wirfs"

After the game, a reporter asked Wirfs if Mack talked to him during the game.

“No,” Wirfs said, smiling broadly.

Were you looking forward to this rematch?

“I was very excited, yeah,” the Iowa product said, laughing. “Hopefully the GIFs can stop now.”


This was the one sack Tristan gave up last year:






The full story:

 
That second clip where the guy talked about tackles that get over extended after they get their arms knocked down is exactly what our tackles our doing. They got over extended and stopped moving their feet. Along with great hand placement and massive upper body strength Wirfs keeps moving the feet.
 
That second clip where the guy talked about tackles that get over extended after they get their arms knocked down is exactly what our tackles our doing. They got over extended and stopped moving their feet. Along with great hand placement and massive upper body strength Wirfs keeps moving the feet.
Personally I think our tackles problems are they are doing 2-hand punches so when they miss they can’t recover. Wirfs has been great at having his hands operate independently.
 
Personally I think our tackles problems are they are doing 2-hand punches so when they miss they can’t recover. Wirfs has been great at having his hands operate independently.
Were Richman and DeJong wrestlers in high school?
 
Tristan has been dominant this season.

On Sunday, he dominated Khalil Mack.

Check this out & Watch:

Compare this to our current right tackles. I was rewatching a bit of our Purdue game yesterday. Karlaftis is very good but we made him look like Khalil Mack on several plays. On one early play Plumb must have gotten the play call wrong because instead of dropping back into pass protection, he ran straight out at him, completely whiffed and the results were predictable. We're in for a long day Saturday if our oline can't even get the calls right. I also saw why Keegan Johnson got so few reps. After he caught one of the few really successful pass plays a run play came later in the series. Keegan looked like he was surprised that the corner covering him ran straight toward Goodson. Barely laid a hand on him and the corner tackled him for a loss. There is just so much wrong fundamentally with the offense in that game it's hard to know where to start.. I guess if anything it provided a lot of coachable moments to review over the bye week.

That also got me thinking. After watching the first six weeks of play, it's obvious that the loss of Polasek has hit the Oline hard. They've just been bad. When it comes to coaching the blocking by the tight ends and the receivers, is that left solely up to the position coaches or are others involved as well? They've been equally bad.
 
I do not get how the recruiting services and NFL scouts both undervalued this guy. He looked like a freak athlete when I watched him wrestle his senior year of HS, and put up freakish combine numbers on top of good game film. I will be happy for him when he gets off his rookie contract and signs a monster deal.
 
I remember watching an interview with Joey Bosa early last year when the Bucs played the Chargers. Bosa did nothing and got manhandled all day. They asked Bosa what he thought of Wirfs and he said something to the effect of he's really, really good right now...but in a few years, he's going to be frightening...coupled with an exasperated look of despair from Bosa as he said it.
 
I do not get how the recruiting services and NFL scouts both undervalued this guy. He looked like a freak athlete when I watched him wrestle his senior year of HS, and put up freakish combine numbers on top of good game film. I will be happy for him when he gets off his rookie contract and signs a monster deal.
Wirfs went 13th overall, and has a guaranteed $16m contract. Dudes doing alright.
 
Compare this to our current right tackles. I was rewatching a bit of our Purdue game yesterday. Karlaftis is very good but we made him look like Khalil Mack on several plays. On one early play Plumb must have gotten the play call wrong because instead of dropping back into pass protection, he ran straight out at him, completely whiffed and the results were predictable. We're in for a long day Saturday if our oline can't even get the calls right. I also saw why Keegan Johnson got so few reps. After he caught one of the few really successful pass plays a run play came later in the series. Keegan looked like he was surprised that the corner covering him ran straight toward Goodson. Barely laid a hand on him and the corner tackled him for a loss. There is just so much wrong fundamentally with the offense in that game it's hard to know where to start.. I guess if anything it provided a lot of coachable moments to review over the bye week.

That also got me thinking. After watching the first six weeks of play, it's obvious that the loss of Polasek has hit the Oline hard. They've just been bad. When it comes to coaching the blocking by the tight ends and the receivers, is that left solely up to the position coaches or are others involved as well? They've been equally bad.
I'm not sure its fair just yet to blame the issues on the coaching change. I'd bet if you went back a couple of years in these post there were PLENTY of people on here bitching about coach P as well. The biggest issue is two fold. We lost an AA tackle and the other tackle was a 4 year starter. So we lost about 75 starts at tackle. Part two is the couple of years where we didn't land any true tackle prospects. I think the Ol recruiting picked up the last two years, but were now starting some guys on the edges who just aren't ready and they have a new coach to boot, whose still learning each players strengths. Add to that SP's lack of mobility and we have what were seeing on Saturdays, a work in progress....
 
I'm not sure its fair just yet to blame the issues on the coaching change. I'd bet if you went back a couple of years in these post there were PLENTY of people on here bitching about coach P as well. The biggest issue is two fold. We lost an AA tackle and the other tackle was a 4 year starter. So we lost about 75 starts at tackle. Part two is the couple of years where we didn't land any true tackle prospects. I think the Ol recruiting picked up the last two years, but were now starting some guys on the edges who just aren't ready and they have a new coach to boot, whose still learning each players strengths. Add to that SP's lack of mobility and we have what were seeing on Saturdays, a work in progress....
OK. But one concern might be that this wasn't game 1 or even 4. It was game 7 and it looked like these guys were starting their first game.. Forget about the edges then. We have 2 guards with pass blocking PFF ratings of 35 and 43. One of them is basically last out of 476 players and the other isn't much better. The only players on the Oline with good pass pro ratings are Ince and Linderbaum. The rest are bad to terrible. I'm not saying that Polasek's replacement is bad since he's brand new to Iowa but the change hasn't been positive this year. At all. And it's been showing up every week. Hopefully the 2 weeks between games can show some meaningful growth.
 
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When you’re that big, athletic and powerful, it’s going to be really hard for defenders to win against him. He may go down as one of the best OL in the NFL from Iowa.

Wirfs aready is the best OT in NFL ever out of Iowa. Who has been better than him? Gallery was NFL bust at Tackle. Yanda had long career, mostly guard if I am not mistaken. Bulaga has been meh and injury prone. Reiff is pretty good but not Wirf good. Brandon Scherff is all pro, but at guard. The big money/prestige is at OT and that is Wirfs.
 
This.

Wasn't one of the critiques that his arms weren't an ideal length or something? I swear NFL scouts/GMs way overthink draft stuff and make some real bizarre choices when on the clock.
The only team that made a huge mistake drafting an OL in the top 15 was the giants. Wills and Becton have really good futures they have just dealt with injury issues.
 
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