Quote:
Originally Posted by Rudy tossed tigger's salad
First 8 weeks around here will be pretty funny. Lots of excuses about scheme adjustment. It'll be like a whole CP of Alex Smith Only fans.
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Best thing we have going for us is how low the bar is.
I'm not sold on Spags; I think he's decidedly mediocre as a DC. That said, decidedly mediocre is good enough, at least good enough to provide a significant upgrade over last year.
Whether or not Sutton is reeruned in a vacuum is a question for another day - the bottom line is that the players here clearly weren't responding to him. Maybe he'll have success somewhere, but he wasn't having it here and THAT'S the bar Spags has to clear. It ain't much.
Compare the likely defensive starters on this squad to other Ds in the league and it's probably roughly average. Some warts, to be sure, but some undeniable strengths. Clark, Mathieu and Jones are very good players. Okafor and Ogbha/Speaks/Kpass can provide average play as well. Fuller is average at worst and Nnadi is a developing player who has undeniable strengths in a 2-down role. Ward's floor is slightly below average as he played at least at an average level last year and has the tools to succeed.
Hitchens was solid in the Will role in Dallas, Lee was flat-out excellent in coverage. Breeland was very good when healthy the last several years though health concerns remain.
This isn't a defense bereft of ability. It isn't terribly deep and it has some flaws, but welcome to life in a cap league - few teams have an ironclad roster on the D side of the ball these days and when you look at what the Colts did with solid coaching and a decent but unspectacular roster, you have to be intrigued by the possibilities.
If you're looking for a team that routinely keeps teams under 17, look elsewhere because that probably ain't us. But man, if you don't think we can keep teams in the 27-31 range (again, damn low bar), then I don't think you're viewing this objectively.
And with a team that scores 27 on a
bad day, that's gonna be pretty damn significant. We don't need this team to have an elite offense, we simply need it to rarely have a shitty one. I think they can manage that.