Did we get worse?

[Snakeeyes007]

Don't understand how people can say we didn't get worse even though we have lost a lot of strong players through FA. Clearly have gotten worse.


Still very good though.

Big Red, Tate, McDonald; all key contributors.

How can you say we have gotten worse when the 2014 season hasn't even started yet?

Because we've lost several valuable players from our championship team, haven't replaced them yet, AND the 2014 season hasn't started yet!! Why is this basic question about where we stand as a team RIGHT NOW so difficult for so may folks to comprehend? :34853_doh:

Could we potentially be 'better' than we were last year BEFORE the 2014 starts? Yes! There is still lots of time left, and moves still to be made in this off-season, and a draft to conduct, but as of right now, this very moment, with the players we've lost vs. gained so far, as of today, we are a worse team than we were at the end of the 2013 season. Saying we're worse RIGHT NOW is an extremely logical and pragmatic assessment at-this-very-instant-in-time. :thfight7:

Unless we are starting our regular season right now, there is no way to prove you are right. There is no way to say that Scruggs couldn't come in and outperform McDonald or Bryant on the D-Line or Lockette couldn't do better than Tate with a lot more targets.

Tate was 2nd in the league in YAC with 7.9. 2nd in Punt Return avg. among returners with more than 50 returns on the season. 1st in missed tackles with 21, and 1st in tackles alluded over the last three years. One is likely to tear a mental groin muscle trying to make the stretch that Lockette is going to be "better" than Tate by any measure. As a fan however, I would love it if Lockette could be a valuable player in our receiving core. He's great as a gunner on ST at the very least.

I understand it is nearly impossible for many fans to think logically or pragmatically about their own team, and that injecting emotions of fear, woe-is-me, anxiety, etc. into the original poster's questions is the common practice as the reader can interpret the questions through their own prism of emotional instability. Reading comprehension and critical thinking is a practiced art. Some have skill at it, many don't.

Since the 'on paper' argument is as thin as, well, paper, someone could always inject the Madden research to this conversation by removing the players we've lost, keep the ones we don't know about, add the known player movement around the league to a new season, and run simulations. The 'on paper' plus Madden argument is irrefutable on day 3 of free agency! I implore those with a lot of time on their hands to run the simulations, and tell us the rock solid truth to the divisive questions raised by the OP, for the sake of all humanity!! :240039:

 

[Threedee]

We still don't even know the strength of our present offense, because we don't know what the value of Chris Matthews and Taylor Price is. We don't know if Rice is coming back. We also don't know what Greg Van Roten will bring to our O Line. Finally, we don't know which WR and OGs/OTs will be drafted.

 

[Tical21]

Sorry, I haven't read the previous pages, I apologize if this is a duplicate of somebody else's thought.

I don't see how you can say we aren't worse today than we were a week ago. We really have only subtracted. Logic therefore dictates we are worse. But we don't play another game for what, 6-7 months? We have a lot of guys that are going to be better 6-7 months from now than they are now. Pups keep improving. Besides Lynch, Miller, maybe Baldwin, literally everybody else is trending upwards, even Russell, Sherman, Thomas, etc. And we're going to add more rookies. You hope that a few new bodies plus the collective improvement of the entire roster overtakes the level that we were at one week ago. We're setup pretty well to do just that. Some guys are particularly important, like Hill, Irvin, Bowie/Bailey, Kearse, Lane, but I think they've all got a decent shot to play up to or surpass the levels of the guys they are replacing.

 

[sc85sis]

Pete is rather accustomed to losing guys every 3-5 years.

 

[MizzouHawkGal]

The question is unanswerable currently given the season doesn't start for 6 months and things will change a million times for us and every other team between now and then.