The Bucs OL has been improving recently. In the past few weeks a couple of different factors have allowed the OL to improve. First off, Marpet and Smith or "the rooks" have been developing very nicely. Ali Marpet has improved probably as much as any player I have ever seen in five weeks. His technique is improving by leaps and bounds and he is a really good run blocker most of the time. He understands how to seal off a blocking lane and he is becoming very good at it. His positioning is really starting to get good to enable him to get those seal blocks.Marpet also has good hand technique and arm extension. He has got a few holding penalties recently because he holds onto his blocks for a long time. That is a really good thing but he needs to stop throwing people around when he has them hooked because it is getting called. That is where he needs to improve his footwork. But he is playing atva high level for a rookie. Donavon Smith has improved so much since weeks one and two. He needs to learn to extend his arms and get into these defenders with his hands. His approach is too passive but he is starting to show good movement and some run blocking flashes. He is still adjusting to the speed of the NFL pass rushers but so are all of the rookies. Every rookie OL gets caught flat footed as a speed rusher goes right on by. It takes time to adjust.The next thing that happened was addition by subtraction. EDS goes out and Hawley is better than EDS. Mankins goes out and now Pamphile is playing better than Mankins was IMO. Pamphile started getting playing time as the sixth OL in their jumbo packages and he was popping off the screen with some of his run blocking. He was crashing down and collapsing the DL on the edge. It is not a coincidence that our running game is suddenly better. Hawley has better movement than EDS and is just all around better IMO. Now that Pamphile is starting at LG they have Fragel coming in as the sixth OL and he has been getting some good blocks for the RB's too. I hope they are working on a goal line pass play to the sixth OL too because it will be easy enough to do with some play action. Cherilus has been up and down and Dotson is probably going to be upgrading the RT position soon as well. Most of the big questions on the OL have been answered in the last few games with the new players coming in and stepping up big time and outplaying the incumbents. You have to give credit to the coaches as well. It's not easy to prepare an offensive lineman with hardly any NFL experience to play and they seem to be doing it well with Pamphile, Fragel, and the rooks. They're nowhere near perfect but they are better than what we had last year, and they are better than what we had earlier this year. I hope they don't get benched. I want to watch this young bunch with Dotson grow up and get better together. This could be a real good OL pretty soon.