Come On Guys, Was It THAT Bad?

Alright, so I understand the frustration, really I do.

"We don't need a TE, which could be found in the later rounds!"

"Passing on Rey, TWICE?"

"Animal was there for the taking, and we let him go"

"Where Is the OL help, what about 'build the trenches' talk?"

"Oher was good enough to go to the Ravens, and they seem to know OL talent"

"WR?"

"RB?"

"OLB?"

"OLB, Again?"

Well, let’s just be reminded that Mayhew & Schwartz preached from day one a few things:

"We Need a Replacement for Bobby Layne" (Okay that was actually made BEFORE day one when he was hired, but still, mission accomplished). CHECK. Quit comparing him to Joey Harrington, this kid is good and has just as much of a shot to be a Franchise QB as any next year (with a year more of NFL experience).

"We Need to Run and Stop the Run"—Lets face it, a simple upgrade of OC alone will at least HELP this problem. We signed Loper, a very good young offensive lineman that can play any place on the line that could not find a starting spot on a VERY GOOD O-line.

We kept our buy guys, we even resigned Peterman (Linehan was Peterman's coach in college) to five years, obviously they feel very highly of him after watching the year's tape.  I am not saying it is fixed, but it is not as bad as some people think.

Stopping the run: We brought in Grady, picked up the Hill (please look at the first 20 seconds of THIS VIDEO to see your new 6'4'' 330 lbs. DT )

Let me tell you why I feel so good about what is going on. I am a very firm believer that this coaching staff could of got 2-3 wins last year, and I think that is why we got the coaching staff we did, because they know that this team absolutely underperformed last year.

Sure, there are a lot of holes of talent on the team, but we're not absolutely lacking.

We have two good veterans at DE: Devries and White (underrated) a project (Francis), and a hopeful rising start (Avril). Sims will benefit from a slightly shored up dline and some help alongside him in Peterson. Depending on how Levy does (and assuming we bring back Lenon for insurance), that already is an upgraded front seven.

Louis Delmas is going to be good, and I am very excited to have him on the team. Here is what Birkett reported:

....Schwartz on Louis Delmas: “We've probably gotten about 10 calls today from different people around the league said, 'Damn, you took our guy.' You don't have to watch very long on film to see what kind of player he is. A multidimensional player, a guy that has some corner in his background, he's got great range against the pass, he's got great instincts and absolutely brings it in the run game. A guy that wants to make the play. And there's a difference when you talk about guys in the secondary that are willing to tackle and guys that want to tackle. And you'll see that immediately when you watch it on tape.”......

As far as the WR & RB, they are both very, very speedy players, and being able to try each of them out, we should be able to get each one to either PR or KR, or possibly one that really excels at both. Plus, they add continued depth.

As far as the OLB's, Both are expected to make the transition to MLB. Levy is to play MLB in this weekend's Rookie Mini-Camp. Here is what Levy had to say of the situation:

“We went against a lot of teams, a lot of system formations where I ended up with similar assignments to the (middle linebacker) a lot of times, so I'm just going in there and learn as much as I can and hopefully apply it to the field as soon as possible.”

So there you have it. I think our Oline and Dline are much better in Mayhew & Schwartz's eyes and continued to take the talent that was available to them. They took the No. 1 TE, the No. 1 QB, the No. 1 S, and have put together a foundation of solid talent.