Obviously very disappointing and surprising end to the season. Going into the year we expected the offense to be our strength and were hoping defense would be good enough. Offense never really seemed all that in sync and became apparent early on the offensive line wasn't good. By the end of the year our oline was at the bottom of the pff rankings and the running game was non-existent. I know there is a lot of finger pointing ar trevor and press taylor but so hard to judge when the line is that bad. Defense probably overachieved early in the season with timely stops and turnovers. Even still never would have guessed the collapse we saw in second half of season. Assuming everyone saw the stat about leading the league in missed tackles during the 4 game losing streak. For as much as the league tweaks the rules to make the game more like basketball on grass, at the end of the day it's still fundamentally about blocking and tackling and we weren't good at either.

As we look foward ultimately we are just too soft on both lines of scrimmage. Need a major overhaul of the interior of the offensive line and need to get more stout at defensive tackle. And not just stout against the run, need to be able to pressure QB up the middle. I do worry about our ability to fix this. First, feels like this coaching staff prefers athleticism over physicality on the oline. Second we likely can't be big spenders in the free agent market so we need to get lucky finding value. And third our draft history under baalke hasn't been good so far. It's going to be a tall order but if we can get the interior of oline to be just league average, I think the offense could see real improvement next season.

On a complete side note, while I don't think we should move on from lawrence or pederson, I do wonder at times if lawrence is the perfect fit for how pederson wants to run the offense. All these short routes that have to be thrown with precision on time and typically in tight coverage just doesn't seem like it fits Lawrence's strengths. I think lawrence would be great on a power football team that likes to play action and throw down the field.

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