How does the defense get better next year?

[Chargem]

So, early indications are that the defense still needs to improve. While things could change, I wanted to have a look at how many spots can you actually improve next year via the draft or free agency if we get to the end of this year and decide the defense still needs significant improvement.

The Front 7:

Linebackers: Wilson is signed next year and looks good in my opinion. Hitchens is here next year because of his contract.

Possible improvement/change - 3rd LB. However, this guy probably won't be on the field much, so re-signing Lee, drafting a guy or looking for an FA probably doesn't have much impact on the defense.

Defensive end: Clark and Okafor are locked in because of their contracts. Kpass and Speaks are probably on the roster.

Possible improvement: Ogbah has looked good as a rotational guy, either re-signing him or similar replacement probably makes very little impact on the defense.

Defensive tackle: Probably where the biggest change could come in the front 7. You would expect Nnadi to still be there, but either you sign Chris Jones and the DT group is mostly unchanged (with Ivey or Saunders or a draft pick taking Williams' snaps) or you do some kind of tag and trade for Jones and you have to expect that the DT position will be worse next year, even if you invest a high draft pick gained from trading Jones.

Improvement - literally none possible for next year. You can't expect a rookie to outperform Jones, so either you stay the same or you get worse (in the short term).

The Secondary:

Safety: Again, we are kind of locked in on this group. You have a lot of investment in HB and Thornhill, so splashing any kind of cash doesn't make sense neither does investing any significant draft resources.

Improvements - none really possible, except for better depth pieces.

Cornerback: The obvious change, with only Ward and Fenton under contract next year. This is already discussed ad nausem elsewhere so I won't go into much detail, but you're probably looking at trying to re-sign one of Breeland and Fuller, then add a high level draft pick. Or instead of a re-sign, you could look at an FA signing instead probably at the mid-tier level, depending on what you do with Jones.

Improvements - if you re-sign Breeland, the only possible improvement is expecting a rookie to outplay Fuller. It could very well happen, but it doesn't seem like you can expect significant improvement here either, at least next year.

Basically I've written a ton above to get to this: for the nickel package, of the 11 starters this year we are probably looking at 8 starters this year who are starting next year due to contracts or investment made in the players, possibly 9 if you retain Jones.

If the defense continues to disappoint this year, can changing two CBs and some rotational or depth pieces really turn it around? If not, what else can you do? Are there any defensive contracts you can actually walk away from to change more starters?

I realize that you can't always think as short term as "next year" only and some possible moves like trading Jones might be a short term negative for long term gain, but I'm putting that aside for now.