What to expect of the offense in '09?

[70Chip]

1) the possibility/probability our WR corp makes a leap in a single season (predicting no change in the group btw)

I'm not expecting too much of an improvement from Thomas. If Kelly can be healthy, I suppose he might make a difference, but I really think that Cerratto painted himself into a corner by drafting 3 receivers so close together. He should have drafted Davis and one of the other two and then kept Mix another year to see if he developed and then they could have been justified in drafting another WR or going after one in FA, although after Houshmanilli, the pickings were pretty slim. Now our whole season hangs on a bad knee and a bad attitude.

2) whether our o-line can become a respectable unit between now and opening day

I've never thought our offensive line was not respectable. They were much better last year, to me, than they were the year before with Fabini and Wade/Heyer on the right side. That line was poor. Last year's line run blocked pretty well although they did taper off at the end. I think you could make a case that the lack of a passing game allowed defenses to be more agressive in keying on Portis rather than a big drop off in execution as to why they dropped off late.

In terms of pass protection, I just think that people have the bar set too high in their minds. Defenses today are totally focused on pressuring the QB (except for ours, I guess). No QB is going to be clean the whole game. The onus is on the skill players to a)maximise the situations where there is solid protection, and b)minimize the damage when things inevitably go awry. That's all the current successful QB's in a nutshell to me. If you're waiting for an O-Line that will do what the 1991 O-Line did, you'll be waiting the rest of your life. That was a 100 year performance. Our line is at worst middle of the pack. Age is a concern, but when I see people talk about the O-Line as though they were 32nd in every category, I have to scratch my head.

3) whether you all think Zorn can create a game-plan that maximizes our talent on offense and turns "touches" into touchdowns

I 'm sure he can. I think he needs to be more agressive early in the game. Too many times last year they would have three three and outs with all vanilla playcalling before he ever got to the plays that had any chance of success. There's no rule that says you have to save all the good stuff for the 4th quarter. You need to have 60 minutes of good stuff. Sometimes it helps your team's attitude to just come out on the first play with a reverse or some other gadget to keep it loose and get the blood flowing. Maybe just give Jason the green light to take a deep shot right out of the box.

I think that he needs to stop calling what I would call "crutch plays" for Jason. (A crutch play would be one that he knows there won't be a mental error on because it's really basic and they've run it a 1,000 times i.e. that slant to Moss that was less and less sucessful as the season wore on) Zorn cannot allow caution to become fear in his mind as a play caller. Caution is good. I saw more and more fear as the season went on.

Lastly, we need Jason Campbell to take on a little bit of a schoolyard bully mentality. Did you ever play sports in like 4th grade with a kid who was bigger than all the other kids, but who still took great joy in dominating every sport? Who didn't think his exploits were in any way cheapened by the fact that his opponents were so much smaller and weaker? Wasn't that kid a dick? That's what you need from your QB.