Bob McGinnOn offense, it's time to toe the linePosted: Sept. 26, 2009St. Louis - The philosophy, the planning, the coaching and the level of performance regarding the offensive line has thrown the Green Bay Packers into a state of uneasiness just two games into the season.The Packers down deep must be wondering if their miscalculations in the offensive line could short-circuit the tenures of general manager Ted Thompson and coach Mike McCarthy.Losing left tackle Chad Clifton for two games, if not more, with an ankle injury of unspecified nature and severity has left the Packers without their fourth-most important player entering the season.Of course it's a major blow, but it's not as if the Packers should be surprised that a 33-year-old player with a broken-down body got hurt.Even though Thompson left the organization high and dry without a legitimate No. 3 tackle, the Packers can ill afford to panic. There are games to be won. That's all that matters.They didn't fold in 2002 when center Mike Flanagan had to replace Clifton for eight games. They prepared Flanagan at a foreign position and watched him allow merely one-half sack as the club went 6-2.The best organizations, the ones with the resourceful head coaches and the offensive line coaches worth their weight in gold, just make it work. Pittsburgh won two Super Bowls starting backup tackle Max Starks. New England claimed its first with lumbering Grant Williams playing the entire second half at left tackle after Matt Light went down, its second with backup Tom Ashworth at right tackle and its third with backup Brandon Gorin at right tackle.Few in the state have forgotten that, if Ron Wolf hadn't signed 10th-year tackle Bruce Wilkerson in April and made sure he made the team, the Packers probably wouldn't have won Super Bowl XXXI.So let's do away with the excuses right from the start.The second blown knee suffered by Mark Tauscher in Week 13 last season almost made it easier on Thompson and McCarthy because they had determined it was time to move on. With Tauscher still just eight months removed from a second reconstructive surgery on the same knee, the Packers aren't convinced, even in their hour of need, that he is able to play yet.Tony Moll started Weeks 14-15 at right tackle for Tauscher, was awful and gave way to Daryn Colledge in the finale. Colledge looked so comfortable there that, barring a big-money signing or high draft choice, it seemed logical he would be the best bet at right tackle in 2009.Colledge isn't an ideal tackle. He's only 6 feet 4½ inches, isn't a great athlete and weighs a pumped-up 312 pounds.But given the alternatives, it was reasonable to think Colledge would be functional given an entire off-season. The Packers still would have Jason Spitz, Scott Wells and Josh Sitton inside, with newcomers and holdovers set to challenge.McCarthy had other ideas. In March, he essentially made it Allen Barbre's job to lose.That stunned me.On paper, Barbre looks pretty good, especially in a zone scheme. He possesses phenomenal 40-yard speed (4.9) and has incredible strength.But there's just something about Barbre that never squared with the successful offensive linemen in Green Bay over the last 25 years.He hails from Granby, Mo., a town of 2,200 people. He played in Division II at Missouri Southern State.The Wonderlic intelligence test is far from the be-all, end-all in determining a player's mental capacity to play football. But after studying test scores for years, it appears that it matters a great deal in the cerebral world of the offensive line.Barbre took the Wonderlic twice. His first score, which most teams regard as most telling, was 11. At the combine he scored 15.Considering scores for past linemen in Green Bay, Barbre's scores were extremely low. Kevin Barry's first score was a 9. Clifton and Marco Rivera each had 16, but they came from schools in power conferences and fit right in.Barbre is just a very naïve kid. He blew assignments his first two seasons even though the Packers smartly limited him to only one position. But there was too much happening quickly for him at guard, and so the decision was made to move him outside, although he had been a left tackle in college.Despite another summer of losing his cool and getting in fistfights, Barbre had some bright moments. He is more of a tackle than a guard. He does good things in the run game.But then the lights went on and Barbre has gone in the tank. His footwork is a mess. Rushers have knocked his hands down, which is absolutely alarming. In two games, he has allowed two sacks, three knockdowns and five hurries.One can't say yet with any degree of certainty that the game's too big for Barbre.He works. He's gifted. But it very well might be, too.Giacomini looks incapableIf McCarthy and Thompson were reckless enough to roll the dice on Barbre, they needed to have a competent back-up.That was supposed to be Breno Giacomini. A right tackle only, he bends from the waist and has shown almost none of the run-blocking tenacity that led the Packers to take him in the fifth round last year.There are nine offensive linemen on the roster. Clifton's hurt, Giacomini probably won't ever be able to play, rookie free agent Evan Dietrich-Smith probably can't play now and the coaches appear fearful about using rookie T.J. Lang.It's a deplorable situation. Then, when rookie Jamon Meredith was lost to Buffalo off the practice squad Monday, the Packers brought tackle Dane Randolph instead of a prospect from someone else's practice squad, even though Randolph looked like a complete reject in August.Look around the league. Twenty to 25 teams have an experienced No. 3 tackle.Thompson could have signed Tra Thomas, Khalif Barnes, Ephraim Salaam, Erik Pears, Kevin Shaffer, John St. Clair, Floyd Womack or Adam Goldberg, among others. Not one of them got more than $1.75 million in bonuses, a pittance for a team ranking second in cap room at $18 million.Watch Goldberg, a seven-year veteran, Sunday afternoon. He is starting at right tackle for the St. Louis Rams because their first-round draft choice, Jason Smith, has a sprained knee.Goldberg, 29, epitomizes the type of player that Thompson has no interest in signing. Despite his many limitations, Goldberg does have 30 starts at various positions and at times has done a serviceable job.The rebuilding Rams can find a roster berth for an insurance policy like Goldberg, but the Packers, with designs on the playoffs and beyond, would rather go with a stiff like Giacomini.Other than quarterback, the feeling in the league is that offensive line requires the most nurturing. It's a learning position, not a talent position, and technique often wins out.In the last quarter century the Packers have had three masterful line coaches. Jerry Wampfler might have been "a negative cat" to be around, as Greg Koch once said, but the man really could coach. Then there was Tom Lovat, the steady hand under Mike Holmgren, and Larry Beightol, who coached exceptional units under Mike Sherman.James Campen, the current coach, was one of those underachievers that developed into a solid starter at center in Green Bay. After his career ended in 1993, he eventually coached in high school for nine years.Sherman and his tight ends coach at the time, Joe Philbin, each was on staff at Tulane in the mid-1980s when Campen played there. Despite his limited résumé, they hired him in 2004 to work mostly in quality control. McCarthy made him the assistant line coach under Philbin in 2006 before bumping him to No. 1 in '07.In terms of college and pro coaching experience, Wampfler had 22 years when he arrived in 1984, Lovat had 25 when he returned to Green Bay in 1992 and Beightol had 31 when Ray Rhodes hired him in 1999.In comparison, Campen had three years of experience when promoted to run his own show. His assistant, Jerry Fontenot, played center for 16 years but had no coaching experience when hired by McCarthy in '06.In the dog-eat-dog environment of the NFL, it makes no sense to make the offensive line an entry-level position. It's not enough to work hard; they all work hard.Give me someone who has run drills and seen every blitz there is and made sideline adjustments on the fly year after year.The Packers are high on Campen. On more than one occasion Thompson has denied permission for other teams to interview him.Given the fact that McCarthy fired seven coaches in January, who was out there if he had sought a new line coach?Veteran candidates availableThere were many sound veteran candidates. Some weren't zone run guys, but so what? Given the deplorable state of the Packers' zone scheme, McCarthy would have been farther ahead letting the new line coach just change it all to power if that was his preference.Perhaps the best man was old pro Bill Muir, out in Tampa Bay and then hired by Kansas City. Beightol, 66, has tried to get back into coaching. Fired in San Diego, Jack Henry probably would have joined McCarthy. They coached together in New Orleans for five years; Beightol was with McCarthy in '99.George Warhop and Mike Maser were available. Warhop, another former McCarthy colleague, landed in Cleveland.In five years, Thompson hasn't drafted a lineman in the first round and just one in both the second and third rounds. Many variables affect the development rate of linemen. You can judge that rate in Green Bay for yourself.Nobody is advocating firing anyone, just like nobody is saying this unit won't turn it around in short order. Twice in McCarthy's first three years the line stunk in the first two games before playing well in Week 3.This is no time to panic. It is a time for the offensive line to come together and start playing.The question is, are the pieces in place for that to happen?