dlockz
Hall Of Famer
I will break this down position by position with some comparisms to last year's team.
Qb- Definately have upgraded the position with Pennington over the likes of Trent Green in his current state. Have a legitimate player to groom as our future qb in Henne instead of a journeyman in Lemon. Also have the luxury of having last year's 2nd round pick to develop. This is the best our qb position has looked since Marino. Pennington has played mistake free football and has not tryed to do more than he is capable of. He is like a good Jay Fielder without the mistakes and better accuracy. Last year's qb's had a rating of like 70 while Pennington is in the high 90's. B Plus
Improved
RB- So far Ronnie Brown has performed to a similar level to last season before he was injured. overall his yards were much higher but he has been a force in the redzone so far this season. The differance is if he goes down we have a legitimate threat in Ricky williams that is a big improvement from Chatman. As a runner Cobbs seems no differant but he is contributing alot more in other ways this season.
B Plus Improved by having a full season of Ricky and Ronnie healthy
WR-can I pass on this one lol. Chambers when he was here was having a stellar year even without a TD catch. Once we traded Chambers we had little or no threat last year. Camirillo has really stepped up although I see him as a good backup player that is forced to start through lack of talent overall. Wilford cannot even play close to his old level so far, Hagan has regressed and he was not that good last year. Ginn seems to be less a threat than last year and is averaging a paltry 8 a catch. D minus
no improvement whatsover overall. The plus was for camirillo.
TE- This position seems to have improved even more than Qb. Fasano has been a find and martin has been a good backup. Last year martin was awful and the second banana role more suits him than as a starter.
B plus last year was like an F.
Improved bigtime. TE went from liability to a strength.
OL-Carey and satale were the only linemen worth keeping from last year although I might have kept Hadnot at a lowball offer like he took. We added the first overall pick, Smiley and some new blood at guard. I still hate our depth but mathis may be solid and its still better depth than last year. Our line played much better than given credit for last year although I thought overall they sucked. We now have a real LT and can move Carey back to a place he is better suited. I predict this will be a great line for years. Improved bigtime B plus
DL- last year our age on the DL started to show and we had a Traylor on its last tracks. We added two nice rookie Dl and invested in some depth although I still think we paid too much for Starks. We also traded for a vet NT that still had something left although I dont see him here long term. we moved an underachiving De off the line to a new position. A much better pass rush has been generated thus far.Overall this unit can stay fresher and has more depth. B- but will be better
Improved
LB-this unit was injured alot last year. Overall I think the starting talent was better last year but I think we do have better depth this year with Torbor, Anderson and Moses. if I was only talking about our starters I would say there is a drop off intalent. Nobody we added comes close to Thomas or Taylor but we do have depth and can now allow Crowder to become the teams leader at MLB. A quartet of Akinolye, Crowder, roth and Porter is solid but flawed in pass defense.
B minus
basically stayed the same at linebacker overall but have some developmental players now. Still could use a young stud linebacker on the outside or inside.
defensive back- One area that needed improvement was CB and we totally ignored this position in the offseason unless you count Nate Jones.
Crocker was added at safety but is also not a big upgrade over anybody.
Overall we are solid at safety and have no real depth at corner. Biggest flaw is lack of starter opposite Will Allen. Seems like teams can hurt us at quite bad in the deep game. C- only because we have solid safeties. Corner is dvoid of talent outside of Will Allen. we have one interception from our db's through 5 games.
Not improved .
special teams-we were not good on special teams coverage last year and spent money to improve that area and somehow seem to have gotten worse in some respects. Our return game has been very dissapointing.
Our kicking game is in the hands of a rookie while we had a stellar year from feeley last year, probably the best ever for a Phin kicker. Fields has been an ok punter so far. D
Regressed somewhat but there is some hope for the future with young kickers and returnmen.
coaching- definately see improvement from all areas of coaching as far as thinking out of the box and having a gameplan. Cam Cameron was the worst prepared NFL coach I remember seeing. Not sold on this staff yet but i see hope for sure. Improved B plus
Overall- improved the key area that well help generate wins. The oline coupled with good talent at runningback. the dreadful receiving corp does concern me and hopefully it concerns the staff in the offseason. Defense still has some major holes but as a group they have played solid. A 1-15 team does have nowhere to go but up though.
Improved B
Qb- Definately have upgraded the position with Pennington over the likes of Trent Green in his current state. Have a legitimate player to groom as our future qb in Henne instead of a journeyman in Lemon. Also have the luxury of having last year's 2nd round pick to develop. This is the best our qb position has looked since Marino. Pennington has played mistake free football and has not tryed to do more than he is capable of. He is like a good Jay Fielder without the mistakes and better accuracy. Last year's qb's had a rating of like 70 while Pennington is in the high 90's. B Plus
Improved
RB- So far Ronnie Brown has performed to a similar level to last season before he was injured. overall his yards were much higher but he has been a force in the redzone so far this season. The differance is if he goes down we have a legitimate threat in Ricky williams that is a big improvement from Chatman. As a runner Cobbs seems no differant but he is contributing alot more in other ways this season.
B Plus Improved by having a full season of Ricky and Ronnie healthy
WR-can I pass on this one lol. Chambers when he was here was having a stellar year even without a TD catch. Once we traded Chambers we had little or no threat last year. Camirillo has really stepped up although I see him as a good backup player that is forced to start through lack of talent overall. Wilford cannot even play close to his old level so far, Hagan has regressed and he was not that good last year. Ginn seems to be less a threat than last year and is averaging a paltry 8 a catch. D minus
no improvement whatsover overall. The plus was for camirillo.
TE- This position seems to have improved even more than Qb. Fasano has been a find and martin has been a good backup. Last year martin was awful and the second banana role more suits him than as a starter.
B plus last year was like an F.
Improved bigtime. TE went from liability to a strength.
OL-Carey and satale were the only linemen worth keeping from last year although I might have kept Hadnot at a lowball offer like he took. We added the first overall pick, Smiley and some new blood at guard. I still hate our depth but mathis may be solid and its still better depth than last year. Our line played much better than given credit for last year although I thought overall they sucked. We now have a real LT and can move Carey back to a place he is better suited. I predict this will be a great line for years. Improved bigtime B plus
DL- last year our age on the DL started to show and we had a Traylor on its last tracks. We added two nice rookie Dl and invested in some depth although I still think we paid too much for Starks. We also traded for a vet NT that still had something left although I dont see him here long term. we moved an underachiving De off the line to a new position. A much better pass rush has been generated thus far.Overall this unit can stay fresher and has more depth. B- but will be better
Improved
LB-this unit was injured alot last year. Overall I think the starting talent was better last year but I think we do have better depth this year with Torbor, Anderson and Moses. if I was only talking about our starters I would say there is a drop off intalent. Nobody we added comes close to Thomas or Taylor but we do have depth and can now allow Crowder to become the teams leader at MLB. A quartet of Akinolye, Crowder, roth and Porter is solid but flawed in pass defense.
B minus
basically stayed the same at linebacker overall but have some developmental players now. Still could use a young stud linebacker on the outside or inside.
defensive back- One area that needed improvement was CB and we totally ignored this position in the offseason unless you count Nate Jones.
Crocker was added at safety but is also not a big upgrade over anybody.
Overall we are solid at safety and have no real depth at corner. Biggest flaw is lack of starter opposite Will Allen. Seems like teams can hurt us at quite bad in the deep game. C- only because we have solid safeties. Corner is dvoid of talent outside of Will Allen. we have one interception from our db's through 5 games.
Not improved .
special teams-we were not good on special teams coverage last year and spent money to improve that area and somehow seem to have gotten worse in some respects. Our return game has been very dissapointing.
Our kicking game is in the hands of a rookie while we had a stellar year from feeley last year, probably the best ever for a Phin kicker. Fields has been an ok punter so far. D
Regressed somewhat but there is some hope for the future with young kickers and returnmen.
coaching- definately see improvement from all areas of coaching as far as thinking out of the box and having a gameplan. Cam Cameron was the worst prepared NFL coach I remember seeing. Not sold on this staff yet but i see hope for sure. Improved B plus
Overall- improved the key area that well help generate wins. The oline coupled with good talent at runningback. the dreadful receiving corp does concern me and hopefully it concerns the staff in the offseason. Defense still has some major holes but as a group they have played solid. A 1-15 team does have nowhere to go but up though.
Improved B
