When I started writing this post I was going to point out the Cards had ignored the oline on the 2010 and 2011 drafts and that this was a significnat cause of the oline woes today. But as I looked at oline I realized the problem is actually much deeper, much more fundmantal, and frankly, much more alarming from a Card's fan standpoint.

During the Whiz era the following Linemen have been drafted:

2007 Levi Brown 1st round - Still on roster

2008 Brandon Keith 7th round

2009 Herman Johnson 5th round, Trevor Canfield 7th round

2010 None

2011 None

2012 Bobby Massie 4th round, Senio Kelemete 5th Round, Nate Potter 7th Round

The only Olineman still on the roster from the 2007 to 2011 draft classes is Levi Brown (while he is hurt, that is not really relevant to this article). Every other drafted olineman is gone. In a similar vein, the only UDFA the Cards acquired from 2007 to 2011 that is still on the roster is Sendlein. No other player has been picked up and developed and improved to the point of holding a roster spot today. These two observations are very alarming for the future of the oline. For the most part good o-linemen never make it to free agency – they get resigned. Mediocre linemen are available in FA, but they are, well, mediocre. Colledge, Snyder, Ohrnberger, Batiste, McQistan are all examples of the type of olineman available in FA. Some are serviceable to fill in holes or as backups but you cannot build any type of solid oline this way.

So the only way to really build an oline is through the draft or picking up and developing UDFAs. I don't think we have enough info to fully evalaute the 2012 draft class yet, but from 2007 to 2011 Whiz, Grimm, and Graves have sucked at picking and developing olinemen. So if they staff and FO cannot get the job done on evalauting and developing oline they need to find someone who can. Something has to radically change here.