Onwenu: More like OnWenUGonBeBack? amirite?
Trent Brown: I thought I read on here he lost a bunch of weight and now weighs less than the rest of the team combined or something?
The rest of the line: I hope to GOD that last year was the coaching staff bed-crapping that's emerged as the dominant narrative. It definitely sounds like they just did not know who goes where, blind leading the blind. If that's the case, they've got unknown ability, and with BOB in charge, can make this team look very good.
KB turned into this weird fan favorite when he was in the doghouse last year. Honestly, there is no measurable that makes one think "oh let's get
that guy the ball." He was just 2A-2B with Meyers in a year without a 1... and by the way, unless TyQuantumUncertainty is alive when we open the box this year, we're still going to be speading the ball around to okay guys. It's a value approach. If somehow we get a "true no. 1" cheap, fine. But I think BB 2024 would rather be the team you can't score on than the team you can't outscore.
I think we're set at RB and want to keep that pipeline producing, but if someone can add value
at value, yes, we'll try to grab him.
Defense
Oh, a Wise/Guy, eh? You started it... I think the D Line looks good-to-very-good, and we're also in that category at OLB. You're right that ILB shows nobody special, although it's hard to look special at ILB. I think the Front 7 is solid enough with some legit stars (Barmore DUH, Judon, sometimes Uche, let's hope for instant wrecking-ball success from K. White,) but you can't be all things to all people. A Tavai will never look mind-bendingly good, unless he's a unicorn. He's there to stop the run, not match up with tight ends. He ended up with a respectable 69 tackles but when was the last time we oooh'd and ahhh'd about a number of tackles a guy has ascribed to him? That said, other than out-of-bounds plays and turnovers, every play that ends well for the defense ends in a tackle so I'm okay with a decent tackler.
There is nothing you will notice more or more deeply than a day when nobody on the team can seem to face anything more than arm tackling. You turn down the game and make a sound halfway between "uhhh" and "ehhhh," like somebody who really wanted to be somewhere else half-heartedly arm-tackling a guy, and you make that sound 3 or 4 times, until the bad guy in question is in the end zone. No thank you. The world needs Tavais or some upgrade on Tavai (he followed Matt Patricia here, so it's worth watching who's up next.)
Keion White "Things That Make You Go Hmmm" reminder: Started college career as a tight end. 285 pounds and can catch. He's going to take time in the system and with honing technique to be truly disruptive but lots of promise. And I predict we throw him into weird short yardage or 2-point packages before his stay with the Pats is over, provided he doesn't stink up the joint with his day job rushing the QB/setting the edge. I'm honestly excited about him. I think he'll lose battles against some of the more skilled tackles in the league but he is going to destroy some guys along the way. (Yes, I am in pre-season, believe-all-hype mode.)
Jack Jones may need a breakout year, but not the kind you're thinking of. We'll see how that plays out. Like everybody else, I have super-high hopes for Gonzo out there, but I wanted him as an added CB, not a replacement. If we still have Jalen Mills I think we should legally require him to have it changed to Jalen Jones to keep things simple, ditto Miles Bryant. I trust Peppers and Dugger, but that's just me
.
Otherwise I was very ready to fawn over this D, but yeah, the formerly scary-looking secondary will look less so without our no. 1 corner, or should I say, no. 1 with a bullet, or should I say with a couple loaded firearms full of em. Just play football Jack. Damn. Okay moving on.
WTF is up with Ronnie Perkins. He's up to two redshirt years. Is the idea that he will never play, whoops, just a third rounder, no big? Would love to see guys like that who we've forgotten have a stellar camp, with previous poor production suddenly explained as they come out of hiding. I'm sorry, but we need some breaks like that too.
"Every day you see one more card."
I can see this defense still being very good. The offense? As I've said, I don't know how much to lay at the feet of Patricia and Judge (the latter of whom will actually be back, yikes.)
Here's a nightmare thought: Maybe they actually were okay, not wretched, and a few players siezed on the difficulty of the new blocking scheme to paint them in the worst possible light. What then? I don't think that's the reality, but if it is, big yikes.
I'm trying to remain grounded, because we really had a bottom-third or bottom-fourth of the league offense last year. Sort of "bottom of the regular pack, before you get to the teams people would say are a good college team." So it's tempting to find a single-point failure, with that single point being coaching.
So I like the idea that Matt Patricia just sucked and all our players are great, yayyyyy, but I just think we're actually shooting for mediocre on offense, and last year we missed. That's not because we want to be mediocre, it's because we've chosen to stop pouring resources into the passing game unless it is a great value proposition.
I think.
