Remember the Offseason?

[mayoclinic]

I loathe ESPN as much as anyone, and I'm not a fan of blogger James Walker at all. But this piece made me laugh:

Remember the offseason? - AFC East Blog - ESPN

Sure, it's just some quotes from idiot fans from various AFCE teams (as opposed to quotes from mediots). But it makes you think how far things have come:

- The loss of BJGE and an unproven group of young RBs
- The loss of Matt Light and Brian Waters, combined with injuries to other OL starters
- A major problem with the pass defense and secondary play

And all that despite injuries to both Gronk and Hernandez.

 

[JoeSixPat]

I was never worried about our RBs - as far as OL there were certainly questions with a new LT as to be expected. The depth that Waters could bring was more of a concern for me than Pight retiring. When an LT loses a step it's very dangerous for his QB and I think Light knew that and was big enough to do what was best for the team. But they've done well especially given the injuries they've had

At WR & TE there was never a concern with Gronk, Hernandez and Welker, with the expectation that Lloyd would at least be a better deep threat than what we had last year. He's not blown anyone away but for decent money he's improved our WR ranks

Our secondary has had ups and downs and is still finding itself - but a good secondary starts with with the DL so I think we've seen a lot of that

What's more funny is the predictions by Jets and Bills fans of dominance. Bills fans are to be forgiven for salivating over a long awaited decent season. But I seem to recall Wrecks Ryan boasting that he had the most talented team of his coaching career - so I guess it must be bad coaching then!

I am surprised that the Jets have done NOTHING to involve Tebow in any meaningful way. For Denver, even when you knew he was going to run, he was tough to stop. His lack of use shows a major disconnect between the GMs and the Coaches (when in reality, they're both awful!)

 

[patsinthesnow]

All the secondary spots were upgraded from last year, although it did take half the season for it to happen.

Talib is an upgrade over Mccourty
Dennard is an upgrade over Arrington
Mccourty is an upgrade over Ihedigbo
Gregory is an upgrade over Chung
Arrington is an upgrade over Sterling Moore/Antwaun Molden

 

[borg]

Thought provoking content out of Bristol, as usual. Reading that reaffirms my self imposed effort to avoid ESPN at all costs (Monday Night Football and Sat A.M. English Premiere Soccer get a pass). Of course, sitting in a sports bar any time means I'll get ESPNized...which was the case the other night. Have you noticed, ESPN has replaced the 24/7 Tebow with All Lakers/All the time.

 

[WinstonSmith]

One of my offseason thoughts: Well, at least we won't have to worry about running out of WR's...

 

[dales804]

"Scott Chandler is better than Gronk."

Those silly Bills fans.

 

[PATSYLICIOUS]

I was never concerned about any area but the secondary/OL. Though the latter I wasn't as concerned with Dante here. It was a matter of one or two guys who could step up at DB, so the potential was there but in the preseason it was all up in the air. DMC, Arrington, Cole, Moore (outside shot but he did show flashes last year), Chung, Wilson, Gregory, Ras-I, Dennard were all reasonable candiates and it's good to see that 4 of those have stepped up to be counted on regularly, plus Talib.

To me it's like the jump this team made from 2009-2010 when people thought the team was nowhere near close to fixing its issues. But in reality it was a good draft and a couple cheap veteran additions away from making a huge improvement. And anybody who was that concerned about the BJGE loss, as much as I love the guy, was grossly overestimating him.

 

[patsfan13]

I thought this was the best:

WildPhins writes: “What does a New York Jets fan do when his team has won the Super Bowl? A: He turns off the XBox.”

 

[Uncle Rico]

One thing I remember from pre-season was a good deal of talk about "16-0." After those three early losses we were all like "hmm, what were we thinking, talking 16-0?" Now we're back to, "Damn, how did they ever lose those three games to those three teams?" In the end, this team could end up being 4 points from 16-0.

 

[patsfaninpa]

We will be the 2nd team in history of NFL with 3 straight 500pt seasons. The 99-01 Rams. Greatest Show On Turf. No sign of dropping off either. Love how we were able to establish a very good running game this year.

 

[Rob0729]

I never bought into the love for BJGE. He is good at times, mediocre others. Last year, he was more mediocre than good. I didn't think he was a huge loss. I always thought he would be replaced just fine. Granted, I never expected he would be replaced by a significant upgrade.

I was a bit worried about the loss of Light, but I thought Solder had a solid and underrated rookie season and would do a decent job replacing Light. I thought losing Waters would be a bigger problem since it weakened two positions forcing Connolly to move to guard, but I always had total faith in Scarnecchia to make it work. The Pats won three Super Bowls with a rotation of JAGs at RT.

As for the defense, I gotta admit that I thought the defense would be much better early. But this defense is reminding a bit of of the 2001 defense that was mediocre the first half of the season and was arguably one of the best defenses in the league the second half. I don't know if this defense will be as good as that defense turned out to be, but the turnaround could be as dramatic.

 

[Uncle Rico]

I thought this was the best:

In the words of Chris Farley ... that was awesome.

 

[Rob0729]

"Scott Chandler is better than Gronk."

Those silly Bills fans.

Chandler may be better than one of the other Gronk brother like Harpo or Zeppo, but he can't hold the jock strap of the original Gronk.

 

[mayoclinic]

I never bought into the love for BJGE. He is good at times, mediocre others. Last year, he was more mediocre than good. I didn't think he was a huge loss. I always thought he would be replaced just fine. Granted, I never expected he would be replaced by a significant upgrade.c.

I always considered the loss of BJGE to be addition by subtraction. I give him credit for his consistency, work ethic and for getting everything out of his ability, and he was a big improvement over what we had before. And he was a good short yardage back. But he was very limited in his explosiveness and ability to turn plays into big chunks of yardage. I always thought we would be better off moving on.

 

[Wax Frog]

One thing I remember from pre-season was a good deal of talk about "16-0." After those three early losses we were all like "hmm, what were we thinking, talking 16-0?" Now we're back to, "Damn, how did they ever lose those three games to those three teams?" In the end, this team could end up being 4 points from 19-0.

How could I resist? I'm sure I'm not the only one who'd gladly trade 4 points for as many trophies if it comes to that....

 

[Deus Irae]

I think this was a year with wider board agreement about the team than we've had for years. We also seem to have hit on most of the issues pretty accurately. probably the one thing we missed was the washout at WR3. How much of that was skill erosion and how much was other matters (esp. with Gaffney) is an open question.

And what makes the season so sweet is that this was the year that the Patriots were going to start collapsing, according to Jets fans.... :singing:

 

[BananaRepublican]

In the words of Chris Farley ... that was awesome.

Do you remember when you were with The Beatles?

 

[BananaRepublican]

I never bought into the love for BJGE. .

My love was more like relief that I didn't have to suffer watching Hop-Skip-Jump Maroney any more.

 

[PatsWickedPissah]

I think this was a year with wider board agreement about the team than we've had for years. We also seem to have hit on most of the issues pretty accurately. probably the one thing we missed was the washout at WR3. How much of that was skill erosion and how much was other matters (esp. with Gaffney) is an open question.

And what makes the season so sweet is that this was the year that the Patriots were going to start collapsing, according to Jets fans.... :singing:

Pre-season we knew we had a lot of "once was" guys at WR3 but folks like me figured the odds were with so many competing in camp that one or maybe 2 would be serviceable. Wrong! lots of old spoiled groceries past their shelf lives. I just hope for a miraculous last burst of playoff contribution from the broken Twig.