Quote:
Originally Posted by dgreen
I agree his numbers would likely drop (but not a huge dive, IMO) and that people would complain about his $/reception ratio. But, I don't think those are good reasons to stay away from Chad Johnson, or any other top WR.
Not true. Simply having a guy of CJ's caliber on the field would help Moss, Cooley, ARE, Portis, and anyone else on the field.
Nobody can convince me Houshmandzadeh is more talented than CJ. Houshmandzadeh, while a good WR, is putting up such good numbers because of who is taking coverage away from him.
WR is the starting position that needs to be upgraded the most. If Springs leaves and Rogers doesn't look like he'll be ready for the start of the season, then I'd say starting CB becomes the biggest need. But, as things stand today, WR is at the top.
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That is ludicrous. Perhaps moss was a bit disappointing early this season, but he was injured, and BL was certainly a bust. But ARE had a decent year for us, and Caldwell and McCardell both proved to be consistent third and fourth receivers. And who knows? Maybe this Anthony Mix kid will be special.
If you ask me the problems with our passing game began with our O-line. Yes our WR dropped alot of balls early in the season, and that should not be excused, but they settled into a rhythm and started producing consistently from the mid point of the season. Furthermore, if you look at the middle stretch during which we lost most of our games, you'll notice that our QB never had time to sit in the pocket. JC constantly had to shift around and bide his time. This allowed him to take the deep shot only a few times every game, and he overthrew a few too many of those deep shots. Yes the WR's dropped a few they shouldn't have, but if you only have a legitimate chance at catching one homerun ball a game then you're SOL. This may not be a completely analogous example, but Randy Mos couldn't do shit on the Raiders. It doesn't simply take an elite WR to turn a teams passing game around, you need a good QB and good pass protection, not to mention some relief from your running game.
I think with our O-line healthy again next year, we will get better production not only from our WR's but from the Offense as a whole. Little needs to be changed in this Offense, but what is certain is that we need young talented depth in the O-line so that late in the season we have our future starters out there showing us why they were worth the draft picks.
As for the Defense, yes they kept us in a lot of games, and finished 8th overall in the NFL, but there is a glaring problem on our Defense. We get ZERO pressure from our front four. OK that is an exaggeration, but it is certainly a weakness, one that I would contend cost us a few games this year. How many times did we let teams drive down the field late in games and score a winning TD our FG? It seems to me that what happened in those situations is that we brought only a four man rush and dropped everyone else back to prevent the big play. It did stop the big play, but we let the teams methodically drive down the field to score and win, and it is because our front four could not disrupt the QB, plain and simple.
These are our biggest concerns hands down, and as you said our secondary could potentially become a big concern as well. I will give you this, we could certainly use an elite WR. Who Couldn't?!? But there is no way it is our #1 need right now. I will grant you that it will be necessary in the next few years for this team to become a powerhouse, but as far as developing this team into a perennial playoff contender is concerned, we have much more immediate problems.