Last year's failure to live up to expectations was all about the coaching, and I will stick my neck out there and propose that Weber would probably agree. However, I must qualify that by stating that the situation should be far improved this year as Weber has grown into to offense.
On the offensive line, EVERYTHING you do is dictated by spacing. Whether your divert your man left, right, up, down, forward, back--this is all determined by where you as a lineman stand in relation to your fellow linemen. While we often think of offensive linemen battling in the trenches one-on-one, more often more the linemen are working together to either double team the rush or, if forced to go head-to-head, to block their opponent into their neighbor's opponent and use the two defenders against each other.
Coach Weber is a phenomenal offensive line coach in the more technical aspects of position. His track record is phenomenal and his utility lies in his knowledge of hand-placement, hip-position, lateral movement and so forth. Prior to last year, however, he had never coached a wide-gap offensive line. While he had the micro-scale know-how, the problem was integrating that knowledge into a foreign macro-level scheme.
I have 100% confidence that Weber has learned the big-picture elements he lacked last season. Coach Anae is more than qualified to help along Weber (Anae is not only the OC, but was the O-line coach at TTech before coming here). I think this year we will see the value of Coach Weber and quickly forget about last season's rough patches.
