I talked to offensive line coach Juan Castillo yesterday about the fact that his offensive line was going to have little or no chance to play together during the pre-season and he played down the importance of playing together and explained his reasoning.
"If you teach all your players the same techniques then there won't be a big change when one player replaces another player on the line, Castillo explained. "I teach all of our lineman to do things the same way, so they do the same thing regardless of who is playing next to them."
I asked Castillo if he meant there was an "Eagles way to do things" and he said yes.
As far as Castillo is concerned, Winston Justice will play the tackle position with the same technique that Shawn Andrews will execute when he returns to action, so Stacy Andrews won't have any changes to make when his brother returns to action.
Max Jean-Gilles will play the left-guard position with the same technique as Todd Herremans was using when he was in there playing the position.
Castillo tries to have his linemen play in a uniform manner, so substitutions are not a big deal.
Although I think his point is well taken, I still believe players have unique ways in which the play the same positions because every player has different strengths and weaknesses.
Hopefully Castillo's method of drilling his linemen on making the calls and blocking each front, blitz or stunt in the same way will limit the instability as the offensive line deals with all of the injuries they have incurred.
He was confidently smiling as he explained his methodology. I hope he's right.
