(08-18-2024, 12:21 PM)Jag149 Wrote: Amazing discussion. 

My two cents.  We have for the first time in many years an actual front office that is doing a decent job. No way do we need to change that. Sometimes the devil you know is much better than the devil you do not know. I see very little value in making changes and a lot of risk. 

The talent level of this year's team is light years better than January 2021 when Baalkie was first hired. It has also increased with the addition of Doug being added to the team.  Yea we need to mess with that. YEARIGHTSURE

I am pretty satisfied with every position group except the offensive line this year.  Facts appear to be at present they can be very young solid playoff level groups if they continue to develop. The offensive line is our weakness, the price of the other groups being what they are today.

The offensive line  is an older patchwork of questionable veteran players acquired using little draft capital. (except Harrison our RT)  This year behind that group of veterans we have a number of players all with the physical metrics to be successful.  I watched last night and in spurts quite a few of them have what it takes and do well. Consistency is the issue with them at present. Actually, as the game wore on and they got more reps I saw improvement except a period of time in the 3rd quarter where they got thrown curveballs by the Buc's defense. After a "meeting" on the sidelines they began to adjust to it.

There are a few that are CRD's and my hope is we do not allow them on the roster this year as we did last year. (CRD=Consistent Rag Dolls) You guys should remember I was the nut case that wanted to keep only Cam, Little and Harrison and kick every other lineman under contract to the curb. We will have two 3rd's and 4th's next year so any young help is at least year away.  That is unless Baalkie has some magic left in his bag this year.

This is pretty much where I'm at. ^

The team looks good outside of the OL, assuming the new secondary takes shape as we hope. That's still a bit of a question mark for me, but there is competitive depth there for the first time in a long time if the assumed starters flourish in this scheme after acclimating.

So we basically have three or four kernels of hope for the OL:

• Cleveland gets healthy and returns to pre-2023-injury form
  
• Baalke and co. ID and land a cut or two from other squads in a few weeks
  
• F.O. trades for an interior OL player early in the season
  
• Foster finally gets snaps at guard and doesn't suck there
  

I don't think this OL is going to hold the offense back to the degree last year's did. How much better they actually are is still anyone's guess.

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