It's easy to say looking at how many points we've given up, and how many points we've made and say "This team looks like it's regressed."  Just look at the stats of last year, and you can see that we're on pace to have a worse season.


However, looking at the stats through week 5, and we see a bit of a different picture.  Keep in mind that last year at this time our opponents had been the Chiefs, Raiders, Colts, Seahawks, and Rams.  Which is somewhat comparable (if not an easier schedule) than the Eagles, Redskins, Colts, Chargers, and Steelers.  



 

Here we see that we've improved in passing yards, rushing yards, rushing yards allowed, and time per drive.  Our run game last year at this point was abysmal, and it's easy to forget just how bad it was.  Of course our defense looks like it's regressed a bit, especially in regards to passing yards allowed.  Which is an area that needs great improvement, but I think that much is obvious.


UPDATE: Running game hasn't improved that much, but it's still an improvement over last year.  



Here we see that we've scored more points than we did last year at this point.  Of course that could in part be due to facing weaker defenses.  Still, I think the schedules are comparable enough.  We've actually got a better point differential at this point than we did last year.  It's also easy to forget just how badly we got blown out at points last year.  We've got more 1st downs, more yards per drive, and fewer interceptions (despite Bortles throwing 2 per game at this point)


It's easy to look at last year as a whole and say we've regressed.  It certainly looks that way.  But looking at the same point last year, and you see a slightly different story.  Our defense has taken some steps backward, especially in regards to pass defense.  But I think we'll see that improve as the season goes on.  Our young offense looks to be doing better than last year, and I think it'll keep it up.  


There's no denying that we all want to see improvement.  We want to score more than 20 points in a game.  We want to stop the other team from scoring at will.  And I think much like last year, we'll start to see some improvements throughout the year.  We could get our first win this weekend.  It will hopefully at the very least be a competitive game..  It's a bit early to say that this team hasn't made progress.  I think we'll know more by the mid-season break.  At which point Bortles will have been our starter for 68% of the season (as opposed to 50%)

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