I agree with you on a lot of your points but as you stated we overhauled most of our weaknesses from last year aside from ILB. OLB was supposed to be held down by average to below average players until ojabo and Bowser could come back. Same with RB with Dobbins and Gus. It’s poor luck for lack of a better term that Means got injured and Ferguson passed away, rip. At ILB we invested a lot into the position with Queen and Harrison in 2020 and we hoped that at some point they would make a leap and it’s easy to say in retrospect that that decision was a poor one, although I’ve believed for a while that their deficiencies aren’t something that can be coached up. Ross actually looked promising before he went down with injury too
you can create contingency wherever you want but you have to pick and choose
at a certain point you have to expect that the guys you have at certain positions can step up
- invested in OL, TE, S, CB, DL
- knew we had some reinforcements potentially coming at EDGE but that it would probably be rough until then but then had an apocalypse with the depth we had available at that position that's made the cupboard even barer than it was initially (which was not well stocked)
- similar idea behind RB which didn't work out initially but also knew JK was on the horizon - could have invested more here for cheap which you can certainly criticise
- trusted the guys on the roster at WR to step up, Bateman has stepped up and been basically everything we hoped he could be in year 2, and in slightly more limited usage we've had a guy step up in a big way in Duvernay who we were less reliant on but hopeful for
- trusted the guys on the roster at LB to step up and while it initially looked like Queen had taken a big step, he still has a tendency to go to sea and is not reliable - he's not the dumpster fire people make him out to be but he's not lived up to the athleticism and traits he showed as a 1 year starter and that got the ravens to jump on him as a 1st round pick - have also had nothing to write home about from Harrison either
basically we've got 2 sets of twin positions with twin strategies
- RB and EDGE both were given some attention but not much with the understanding that there were talented guys who would be potentially able to reinforce those positions after the season started and had to take that calculated risk... with RB it looks like it may be paying off as JK's workload increases each week, with EDGE we'll only start to find out in a few weeks but also were hit hard in the depth at that position which has made everything seem worse
- LB and WR both given almost no attention and actually, if anything, lost talent this offseason but had some talented young guys who were being relied upon to step up... in WR case they have, in LB case they have not