I'm desperately trying to stick to my original 10-6, but that battle red kool aid is pretty delicious. The offense is solid as ever (when we hold on to the football), Ben Tate might even be better than I thought he would be, Arian and Dre are Arian and Dre, and OD looks like he's got something to prove. I'm concerned by the injuries to the line depth, but we've still got a top 5 offense, and the most underrated QB in football.
What I'm really excited about is the D. Joseph looks awesome, and I'm diggin' Quinn at safety. It's nice to see guys making plays back there. And holy geez that front 7! I'm quite satisfied with Mario's progression at LB. The sack numbers will come. JJ Watt collapses the pocket on seemingly every snap, Barwin's picked up where he left off in that Colts game (he's gonna be fun to watch in the opener, no doubt), and Brooks Reed! Instinctive, athletic, and he's just plain mean. We've seen vanilla defenses with 4 man rushes, and we're getting sacks all over the field. This is gonna be a scary good defense once the blitz packages start coming out. AND, we're forcing turnovers!!! When has THAT ever happened?
That said, our run D up the middle SUCKS. I mean, we knew it was gonna with 290lb DT's, but still. I'm hoping getting DeMeco back will go a long way, but that's the biggest area for concern for me on the whole team.
Also, how can we not find a decent kickoff return guy? We can't start EVERY drive from the 17 yard line, can we? I'd like to see Nolan back there on Thursday, just to see. He looked quite capable on that pick return.
|