Bill has suffered recent declines that many of us seem unwilling to admit. It’s happened to every legendary coach.
We have the Greatest QB ever. And Bill still does as good of a job coaching players that he has than ever. But you can only have SO MANY subpar drafts in a row before it becomes costly. It has finally come to a head the last two years, and the defense has been a let down at the worst times possible.
It’s sad. I’m hoping we can muster up one more run out of this, but this today is something that feels crushing.
The drafts have been an issue but they’ve been to 3 of the last 4 Super Bowls and won 2 on the backs of young talent drafted or signed as undrafted
The issue for the 2018 team is the total failure with respect to veteran players in the offseason and camp.
The ST has been awful to the point where the team had to add two veteran ST guys (McClellan and Humber). Think retaining Bolden, Richards or Bademosi would have been better? Not like roster spots are an issue - they cut down to 51 to make way for those two trash WR (Hansen, Darboh) who were quickly cut
The WR group was a mess until Gordon was picked up because of the disaster of losing Cooks and Amendola and relying on Britt, Matthews, Patterson and Dorsett
The DL has been an issue for years, outside of the 2014 season. Solution? Badly overpay Clayborn, trade for Shelton and ignore the position in the draft.
The LB group proved to be slow and thin in talent last year, a total disaster after Hightower got hurt l. Solution? Hope a plodding later round pick or two can help. Pray for Roberts and Van Noy to improve and expect Hightower to be at his best. Sadly, this group has actually been relatively decent compared to the garbage in front of them
The team has struggled at times to churn clock and put opponents away in big spots. Solution? Give their best run blocker a massive extension and draft a RB early. Result? Can’t run consistently anyway. Still overly reliant on throwing near the end of games. Forced to use trickery endlessly on offense to compensate for lack of reliable ground game
Now they’re facing a critical offseason with only 20M to spend and their two best linemen (Trent Brown on offense and Flowers on D) needing big contracts or external replacements. No really promising young talent at the problem positions. No real reason to expect a draft class to immediately improve the 2019 roster in a meaningful way (can hope for 2014 or 2016 success but hard to rely upon).
Looking bleak for any hope of improving. Best case is likely a continued slow decline and hoping Brady can carry the team on his back
