I'm sitting here at 1:00 AM Saturday morning and just had a crazy thought; Why can't we contend this year? I'm a huge fin fan, but have always been a realist. Look down our roster and tell me why we are only an average team.
Offense-
QB is obviously the big question mark for our team, but I think we can all agree we will get much better play than last year. The system will be better (anything is better than the "system" we supposedly had last year created by our supposed OC), and the line will give our QB more time. The line was solid towards the end of last year, but I expect Houck to improve our line a lot.
That may be optimistic thinking, but I think it's fairly reasonable to expect solid if unspectacular play from those 2 parts of the offense. After that what's not to like? We have a group of guys to throw to that is pretty damn good. We've got Chambers, Boston, Booker, McMike, and Ronnie Brown out of the backfield. Those are top notch targets in the passing game. Out of the backfield we have Brown, Gordon, and Ricky. If we can find a way to get ricky and Ronnie in the same backfield imagine the matchup problems on defense. Between the receivers and the backfield, that's a lot of ammunition. The offense should be more explosive than we've seen since Shula left.
On defense we have had some changes. Along the front 7 we've got a lot of flexibility. We will be using the 3-4 at times, as well as the 4-3 as our base. Gone are the days of "We'll put our 11 guys out there and beat us if you can." Not to criticize Bates, but we played a very vanilla defense. Saban is a defensive genius and for the first time in a long time we will add the element of surprise to our arsenal. My biggest worry about defense is our secondary. We lost Surtain, who IMO is the best CB in football, as well as our safeties. While the talent in the secondary besides Madison is unproven at best, I'm comforted by the way the Pats seemingly "schemed" their way out of a secondary nightmare. Injury after injury, yet still they kept teams from beating them in the air. They made Manning look horrible against a depleted secondary.
A variable that a lot of people discount is the loss of Wanny. I have honestly never seen a worse coach in my life. He watched JJ steamroll opponents at UM and Dallas by playing boring fundamental football and he got the hairbrained idea that it would work everywhere. Guess what?? You have to be a far more talented team than your opponents to line up and run up the gut 6 out of 10 times with the same running plays. It worked at UM and Dallas because those teams were far superior. JJ failed here, and so did Wanny because their "philosophy" is dependent on far superior talent. In the FA era, the teams are too closely matched to depend on a huge talent advantage. For the first time in a long time we will have a coach that will scheme against opponents. You guys notice how when Belicheck was the Jets OC, and even with the Pats, he would always find the weak link on our defense. We put out the best secondary in the NFL, but who was getting picked on?? It was the Jerry Wilson's and the Jamar Fletcher's, and linebackers matched up on Wideouts. I think we've seen the end of those days.
I have a lot of faith is Saban, but i don't think it's unwarranted. Many non-fishfans will say that the guy is coming from college and is unproven. Look at Spurrier. I contend that Saban is very much NFL proven, at least as a coordinator. He led a top ranked defense in Cleveland, and in various articles Belicheck has praised Saban's football knowledge. There was one article which stated Belicheck supposedly said he would miss his weekly Saban chats this year more than he would miss his coordinators!! That ought to tell you something.
I look up and down the roster and I don't see any reason we can't be in the thick of things this year. Don't forget besides last year for the past 3 or 4 years we had been an offense away from getting over the hump in the playoffs. IMO we have a chance to be a pretty good team. Besides QB, the biggest impediment seems to be the drastic changes. There's a lot to learn on both sides of the ball, but I think we'll be all right. No reason we can't contend this year. I'm pumped:)
