(05-13-2022, 10:00 PM)TheDuke007 Wrote: I won't quote Bulleye's message in the interest of space.  I mostly agree, but have the following comments:

You say that you don't consider Zay Jones to be an upgrade, but who are you comparing him to?  Chark?  Chark only played 3 full games.  In terms of snaps, he was sixth among our wide receivers.  Our top three wide receivers last year in terms of offensive snaps were:


1. Marvin Jones
2. Laviska Shenault
3. Laquon Treadwell

All three return, although I expect Kirk to upgrade Shenault and Zay Jones to upgrade Treadwell.  I question whether Treadwell even makes the 53 man roster.  I think the Jaguars may cut him in favor of Kevin Austin.  As for Zay Jones, while I don't expect miracles, he does have a low drop rate.  How many times last year were we saying "All I want is a wide receiver who won't drop the ball....."? 

I see three starters from this draft which is better than my original guess of two.  Maybe he doesn't live up to the #1 overall status, but I have no doubt Walker will start.  I also have no doubt that Devin Lloyd will start.  While less certain, I think Fortner will start at center as well.  However, barring injury, I see little chance of Muma getting more defensive snaps than Oluokun or Lloyd this year.

Bartch will very likely be our left guard.  If there was doubt, Pederson basically said it today.  Although Bartch changes from right to left, I don't consider him a new starter.  He played over three times as many snaps last year as Cann and outplayed him.

I do think Cisco beats out Wingard and Little beats our Taylor.

I will say in terms of predictions, I did say that I didn't think we wouldn't acquire our left guard of the future or a safety in the draft.  That was a correct call.

The bottom line is that I see 13 new starters -- 7 free agents (Kirk, Z. Jones, Engram, Scherff, Fatukasi, Oluokun, Williams), 3 returning rookies from last year moving into starting roles this year (Etienne, Little, Cisco) and 3 draft picks from this year (Walker, Lloyd, Fortner).  We also got better depth, some additional role players and better coaching.  I'm hoping for a big step forward this year.

From a "the best ability is availability perspective," yes, Jones would be an upgrade over Chark based on last year's playing time.  But for the most part, Jones didn't do much with the time he was in the game for the Raiders.  In fairness, he had lots of talent around him with Ruggs, Waller, and Renfrow, but outside of one game, I don't see where his production/ability merits giving him the benefit of the doubt as an upgrade to anyone.  That hotel incident doesn't help him in my mind, either.  But the sad part about your snaps analysis is that Treadwell ranked 2rd in snaps among the WRs.  Wasn't he a mid season acquisition?  The fact he could come in so late and still warrant that many snaps speaks to how bad our receivers were last year.  Based on the things I've read about him, I'm rooting for his career to have a positive rebound, but under ideal circumstances, Treadwell should not have had that many snaps for us last year. To say that Jones will be an upgrade to Treadwell isn't saying much at all.   I hope like hell I'm wrong about Jones.  I would gladly eat crow if he made the Pro Bowl here.  But as of now, I still see WR as a HUGE need going into 2023.

I'm also hoping like hell Bartch pleasantly surprises me and takes a step up in his development and play this year.  He has had some good playing time and the reps should help him, but I have my doubts about him.  A guy like him is hurt by this team's seeming perpetual inability to develop players.  Hopefully Pederson, Rauscher, et al can get the most out of him. (speaking of Rauscher, I absolutely LOVED his draft quote about his job in life being to protect Trevor Lawrence!  Classic!  Hopefully he can instill and reinforce that mindset into the players and make them the most capable of doing so successfully.)

Though I;m not happy with the depth on the O, I think defensively, I agree we are a much deeper team than we've been in a long time.  We've added FIVE (5) LBs this offseason, and the guys we've added give us a ton of versatility.  Walker is a bit of a project, and I'd like him to stay at edge so he can quickly develop an array of pass rushing pmoves.  But I can see situations he could line up at 5 tech or 3 tech in addition to LOLB.  Devin Lloys has very good length and athletic ability,  As he was able to do at Utah, I could see him playing inside, rushing the passer from the edge, dropping into coverage and stopping the run.  Though I don't see Muma as quite the edge rusher Lloyd could be, I am very high on his selection in the 3rd round.  I think Olakun gives us a lot of coverage ability,  Arden Key gives us another viable edge rusher.

By my count , we have four to five guys who can give us quality snaps as an edge rusher:

Allen
Smoot
Key
Lloyd
and the if in this scenario is Walker, who seems to have the raw athletic ability to be one.

I'm not sure when we've ever had that before.  In the early TC era, we had Lageman, Smeenge, Simmons and Brackens.  We never had much luck at Edge rushers with JDR.  The DPR concept missed with Cordova.  We tried Kampman, Reggie Hayward and McCray there, with Kampman and Hayward failing due to injury, and McCray washing out for reasons that mystify me to this day.

In 2017 under Marrone, we had Campbell (who I'm not sure truly qualifies and an edge rusher), Ngakoue and Fowler but not much else.  Smoot was a rookie at that point and wasn't the pass rusher he is now.

But this group of guys, from 1-5, could prove to be a very strong group of edge rushers.

We have three guys who could give us quality snaps at NT with Fatukasi, Hamilton and Brown.

The numbers invested in versatile players in our front seven defensively gives us good depth on that side of the ball to the point I am pretty excited.  I long had reservations about switching to a 3-4, but they seem to have done a pretty good job stocking the defense this year.

---