Post-Draft, Quick Team Analysis

[Doc-phin]

Since my post in the anti-fins section that expressed dissapointment in our offseason moves, I have greatly changed my view of the way the team is going.  Here is a quick overview of what I think about the team (post-draft).

Offense - We are looking good in every area.  Our addition of Marshal makes us much more explosive.  We dropped a talented but severely inconsistent player in Ginn.  Our O-line is looking outstanding now that we are upgrading from the inconsistent play of Smiley by signing Incognito and brining in a big mama-jama in John Jerry.  If Ronnie's contract works out (and it likely will), our run game should be even better due to our O-line upgrades.  Tight end may be a bit of a weakness, but don't forget that we are developing Nalbone to be a catching threat.  Finally, our QB situation is better than at any other point post-Dan Marino.  My only question mark is concerns over the conservative nature of the play calling.

Defense - We are deep, talented and physical up front.  The loss of Porter is probably more of a gain, but we aren't sure about the loss of Taylor.  We call Wake and Anderson question marks but we do know that Wake can rush the passer exceptionally well and Anderson has been around long enough not to be a liability.  If Misi develops as fast as his draft position would indicate and Wake improves on his occasional need to drop into coverage we will be just fine at OLB.  Our D-line is definitely good enough to stuff the run.  Our inside linebackers are a definite strength with the addition of Dansby and the quality backup role of Torbor.  Our defensive backfield should be better than last year from an experience standpoint alone.  Bell is a good strong safety.  Davis and Smith should be more consistant and Will Allen is an insurance policy.  We lost a good nickle corner in Nate Jones, but we do have a few replacements (free agents and drafted) that should be adequate.  The biggest question mark is free safety, but good corner play and defensive scheming can minimize that concern.  I must also say that I think that Nolan was a great addition as defensive coordinator.

Special teams - We are deep in nearly every area with athleticism.  We have a solid place kicker and Brandon Fields has panned out as a good punter.  We lost Ginn's speed on kick returns, but he wasn't very consistant anyway.  We need one of our young guys to step up in a return role, unfortunately we just don't know who that might be.  Overall I feel like our special teams will be better this year, at least more consistant.

Final thoughts - Our team is big and majorly physical.  We have offensive weapons and balance that give us a chance to open things up when needed and give us a better shot for late come backs that we haven't had.  Although we have questions at free safety, OLB, nose tackle and kick/punt return we do have enough talent on the roster to expect solid play at the least.  Our biggest roster concern is that many parts of it are new additions, including our D-coordinator.  We don't have the benefit of continuity which sometimes leads to a year or two of underperforming.  Still, we may not be championship favorites, but we have enough talent to be championship caliber.  In most other divisions, we would be fairly easily favored to make the playoffs but the AFC east is poised to be a beast of a division.  We can't afford to start slow this year!

[Sunstroke]

I'm all for the evolution of a viewpoint, but can I ask what changed your mind in the past week?

[Doc-phin]

I'm all for the evolution of a viewpoint, but can I ask what changed your mind in the past week?

Sure, and understandably so.  Here is what I posted in the antifins section to help...

As of today 03/09/2010...

I feel we are falling behind the curve.  We signed Dansby and that was great and all but lets look at what else has happened.

We have lost Will Allen, Nate Jones, Gibril Wilson, Aiken Ayodele and likely Jason Ferguson with the suspension.  Not to mention that we don't know what will come of Jason Taylor and filling Joey Porter's position.  Our backups to these positions are undetermined at best.

Our areas of greatest need can be debated, but lets just assume we can agree on free safety, nose tackle, wide receiver and now some sort of reliable depth at corner.

In my mind we have already blown it at receiver.  I, like many, feel we are too young at this position and shouldn't be looking to draft another receiver.  If we do draft a receiver, my bet is that it would come at the cost of our only veteran's job (Camarillo).  I don't really don't see any #1 receivers to go after at least without a significant loss in a trade.

We have no free safety and we should all be very careful about Chris Clemons as a free safety.  I think Sharper is still available, so perhaps he could ease my mind about this for the short term.  Otherwise, drafting a free safety would be very troubling considering how young our cornerbacks are.  Some may say that Jason Allen would play this role, how secure would you feel about that?

Nose tackle is probably a draftable position that we could expect decent early results, but they don't exactly grow on trees.  I don't think we can rely on later rounds to pick one up, therefore that position would likely keep us from taking a skill position that is truly worthwhile.  Do you want to rely on Soliai?  I don't.

I really don't see any experienced corners that would be worth picking up at this point.  I will be honest, with the loss of Will Allen and Jones I am starting to panic about this position.  If Davis or Smith don't play well or get hurt, I could see us having an even worse pass defense this year. 

Anybody else starting to get nervous?

It wasn't actually the last week.  It started to change when the Brandon Marshal trade happened. 

To be clear, I thought Will Allen had been traded to the Steelers because NFL network posted the wrong photo in their reporting.  So ignore that part.

We addressed the receiver issue in a big way and by trading down in the first round got back our 2nd round pick from this year. 

I didn't like the Odrick move until I understood the plans for Starks.  I think Starks will be pretty good at Nose and Odrick will be a good rotation guy at DE.  Because of this, I think we will be big enough up front to take some pressure off of our defensive backfield.  Therefore my concerns at free safety aren't quite as intense as I previously felt.  I still think we should consider making a play for Sharper to fill the free safety need until a younger player is ready for full time play.

Then I started to realize what they were trying to do with Smiley and I began to feel really good about the likelihood that our running game would improve.

The Jason Taylor saga finally played out.  I was worried about replacing both JT and Porter.  After drafting Misi, I feel like we are going to be ok at the OLB spot between him, Anderson, Moses and Wake.  Wake looks to be a hell of a pass rusher, I just would have liked to see him play the run a little more or drop into coverage a few times.  I still have some concerns here, but not nearly as bad as before the draft.