Yeah, OL is holding the offense back--not WR now. Lots of ways you can improve the team, one is to just go all-in on fixing the OL. It would be an investment and could play huge dividends for us but would sacrifice the defense. OL is so tough too because it's hard to know the question marks:
LT: will Stanley return? Do we need to find a replacement?
LG: is Ben Cleveland the guy to take it? Do we need a true LG here?
C: will Bozeman return? Do we have anyone who can play here on this team besides Mekari who wasn't great last time?
RG: can Zeitler play well again? He's getting old.
RT: is James or Mekari good enough to play here? Do we need to invest here?
Lots of question marks here on the OL. Too bad defense is also a dumpster fire in its own ways. Crazy how it changed so much from year to year since in 2020 it was a very good defense.
Adding an offensive tackle fairly high in the draft, or some more significant investment in FA at the position, is probably the biggest priority of the offseason. I would be shocked if it doesn't happen. It's clear we like Mekari, and it's even possible he ends up as the starting RT, but there's no way this FO commits to him before training camp, and there's no way they'll not have a better contingency plan for Stanley.
People try to specifically say "RT is the biggest need" I think are missing the point. RT isn't the priority in my eyes. Just getting Tackles in general is. We could use a first round pick on the draft's best RT, and if Stanley doesn't come back, that guy is probably going to be playing the left-side as a rookie, or they'll need somebody better than Villanueva to do it. For me, Tackle isn't really a ?. We're going to add probably two bodies to that room, regardless of what happens. Villanueva almost certainly won't be back, meaning you basically have Mekari and Tyre being back that you can "count on". That means you need a starter on the left side and depth. If Stanley comes back, great.
Center is arguably a bigger ? for me. I'm getting the feeling Bozeman may not be back. I'm not sure why, but I've somehow convinced myself that if we were willing to commit to Bozeman, we may have already extended him during the season. And we didn't. My gut says we're going to let him hit the market and see what happens. Likely a situation similar to Mosley or KO, where we make our best offer and just see what the market bears.
If Bozeman doesn't return, I think Center becomes interesting. I don't know that TCC is the guy, and I can't imagine we go through the offseason without adding somebody.
My biggest issue is I would prefer if this draft was very defensive heavy. We identified this reality several years ago, but the reality is that a lot of the $ in the next 2-3 years (starting this past offseason) is going to go to offensive players. Stanley, Lamar, Hollywood, Andrews, perhaps Bozeman, etc. A lot of large contracts already given out or will be given out on the offensive side of the ball. On defense, it's basically Marlon and Peters making all the money, and everybody else is relatively cheap. From a defensive perspective, I'd prefer us to NOT sit there and try to fill gaps with cheap veterans everywhere. We'll need to in certain spots, like a Dline spot maybe, but I'll be really disappointed if we don't go defense-heavy. We need young, fast, playmakers on defense. We have that on offense already. And the more we discuss needing to add 2, 3, 4 offensive lineman to the group (which are harder to find in the draft in my opinion), the less confident I am that we can make that happen.
If I look back at this season and with all the injuries, the reality is that the offense got hit the hardest by the injuries, and they still outperformed the defense considerably in my eyes. You lose Dobbins, Edwards and Stanley for the whole season, and you lose Boyle for a great chunk of it, Mekari is in and out of the lineup all year, Bateman misses significant time, Lamar misses significant time. On defense, losing Marlon and Peters certainly hurts, and we lost depth in the secondary throughout the year, but your Front 7 was largely in-tact for a good chunk of the year, and our defense struggled mightily in a lot of spots.
I do NOT see a good defense with this roster by simply bringing Marlon and Peters back. I see an aging defense that will be, at best, average. An average defense with a great offense can win you Lombardi's, but nothing about this franchise suggests they're going to be happy with the defense.
I think the FO is going to look at this offseason and say "the offense had injury issues. We'll add a starter on the Oline and some depth and move on". But I think they'll identify that there's legitimate talent issues on defense, i.e., we don't have playmakers, and make that a priority.