I’m not sure where the doom and gloom comes from. We should all know, results are the effect of your team’s ability to perform.
The act itself of projecting the future requires you to look at what changes the team’s abilities are likely to have compared to last season.
1) Time in System
I, like many of you, expected year 1 of CGC to be tough. Switching offense and defense is never a good thing and our D side of the ball was playing under their third, vastly different scheme, when you included the grey beard upperclassmen. Defense is more about size and speed than scheme (remember the O dictates what you do and they get to call the plays or decide where the ball goes.) Sure there are maybe a few coaches or teams that are so ungodly gifted physically that they can force you down a path, but even then it is about taking away options (see massive differential on the DLine being better than OLine causing you to have to run quick hitting plays) as opposed to forcing you into a route progression or run package. Given last season’s wildness and lack of time to prepare I think we all agree it was what it was, which was bad. Good news is guys got reps and did some S&C work but really even that was limited by book bag weights and baby lifting circuits.
This to me is a clear area where we should see improvement
2) Size and Speed of players
The mesaurables of our OLine and DLine have proved greatly. This matters, maybe more than anywhere else on the field, and we have gotten better in spades.
Again, I expect this to yield better results.
3) Coaching Maturity
When facing uncertainty it can be easy to default to what you know, not what you hope to know. I think the staff saw last season as getting away from them early, and chose to use it as a developmental year. Not that they wanted to only win 3 games, but that the Win/Loss columns was a secondary measure of the team getting better in their view. Right or wrong, we will see this year. If we show up looking like we get it then I think it’s a shrug your shoulders and move on moment.
How many times did the staff talk about guys “letting go of the rope” in post game pressers. That happens when you’re focused on the development over results sometimes. Winning is hard and requires buy in and commitment to go hard ever snap. Often times we didn’t see that in the games whether it was wideouts jogging through or breakout routes early, the mental discipline loss that led to penalties, missed field goals and dropped kicks. Those are also, apparently, a major focus of the staff through camp so hopefully it improves. (See CJP going no contact, 0-2, turning that choice around and fixing it).
Even for the “show me don’t tell me crowd” you have to acknowledge that they’re talking about it and working on it. So I’d say it’s likely to improve.
4) What we lose
We are going to miss our guy PH3, it’s not going to be easy to replace him. That said I think it’s manageable. Missing DC’s leadership at LB will likely be a wash by upgrading athleticism there. Camp will be missed, but again think it is manageable.
I don’t see any glaring concern for downgrades at positions (again other than punter)
Feels like another check in the plus column.
