This is long but these thoughts have been in my head throughout training camp and I figured might as well put them here.
Skip if ya like but it’s not ai and not voice to text stream of consciousness, although some may find it to be rambling.
Offense: I have the offense outside the top five. Probably around six or seven. That’s not just a yardage or total points thing, it’s how I see the effectiveness of the entire unit.
I think pretty much every offensive player was about as good as we can expect last year and for them to truly be a top five all around offense, it’s going to take some of them to grow beyond what they’ve shown so far or return to levels of past play that was higher than what they’ve become.
Primary concerns are
right tackle, swing tackle, and rb2 if Williams misses even a single game, and
tight end, where I expect to see Ferguson further regress.
I actually think left tackle might be at least ok, I’d like to eventually see a new LT and have Guyton go to the right side. But that’s next year.
WR is terrific and I actually think Dak, while not truly elite, is more than good enough to win in the playoffs if he has the people and coaching around him.
The fact we added nothing to the offense is a concern but when you have a historically bad defense, sacrifices have to be made.
Defense: I think a top 15 defensive showing would be amazing but I just don’t see it happening.
I have them closer to 20. A vast improvement over last year but I just think there are some key spots where the talent is going to let us down.
Primary concern for me is CB. I don’t expect Bland to ever return to near what he was at his best and even then he was boom or bust and I didn’t like relying on him. I particularly don’t like him as CB1.
I also still have significant doubts about the pass rush. The only hope as I see it is that Parker and BT Jordan are able to actually make the deep rolling rotation on the d-line work because, unless Eze has an incredible breakthrough, we simply don’t have an elite talent at either edge.
I’ve always felt the defense was a two year project post-Eberflus and while the talent is improved at almost every position group, there are really only two, maybe three spots where we have a player capable of being top ten at their position.
Special Teams: I think this is going to continue to be huge question mark and I expect it to get worse before it gets better.
I think special teams is all about coaching and our ST coordinator sucks.
All four “legs” on the team (Anger, Aubrey and Turpin’s) are good to great, but the rest is about players at the end of the roster. Every team has that challenge.
Sorensen has not done a good job and DVOA hidden yards metrics showed that we were one of the worst in the league when it comes to the field position battle. Penalties and our bad coverage schemes, particularly with the new return rules, were just flat out bad.
The group is undisciplined, uninspired, and gets by strictly on the backs of the three specialists.
My main issue with Schottenheimer, who most everybody knows I like, is that he hired Sorensen and now has kept him not based on performance but because they have a relationship. His coaching hires have been 10 out of 10 in every spot but this one.
Beyond the obviously critical teams win-loss record, my judgement of Schottenheimer next off season will be heavily influenced by the performance of the special teams unit this year and what he does to fix it when it doesn’t improve. Good coaches make hard decisions.
