My line of thinking is this, if you're managing to hover right around, or, slightly above .500? That's your floor. Which is great to have. Would we rather see double digit wins and play off berths? Absolutely. And, to be fair, that's still within a play-off seed with a 9 - 8 record.

I think they'll finish with 10 wins at the minimum this year though. They don't have a weak schedule on paper, however, they also don't have a difficult schedule on paper. Even some of these "tough" teams we face this year have a lot of pressure to live up to for the second year in a row.

The tinhorns have the bullseye on their back.
The Packers have to live up to their hype.
The Bills have to show what they can do after a major roster shake up this off season.
The Dolphins really didn't impress against good teams last year during their run and Tua is injury prone.
The Vikings have a new QB situation.
The Jets having a returning Aaron Rodgers.
The Eagles have to rebound from a really, really bad late season collapse and play off let down.
The Browns don't have Flacco this year.

These are all interesting games on paper. It wouldn't surprise me either way if we ended up 9 - 8 or 12 - 5 this year. It really wouldn't. The key is this, RUNNING THE FOOTBALL. That's about it for me. I think not having that element to this offense last year absolutely crippled it. They have to push forward, they have to control the battle at the LOS at least 75%+ of the time, or, they'll be struggling to maintain a .500 record all season.

Fully expect this defense to clobber opponents this year. I don't expect to see games where we have to score on every possession to keep pace with some of the better offenses. Guys just need to get it done this year. A lot of "prove it" type of contract situations up for grabs across the board. I expect to see the best performances out of Lawrence, Etienne, Cisco, Campbell and a few others this year. I expect to see night and day differences in Strange and Bigsby as well.

Devin Lloyd is also probably the most slept on defender we have on this roster. He's poised to do good things this season. Especially with his weight getting up there to handle more physicality.

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