First Thompson's legacy is that he built a Super Bowl winner with one of the longest runs of post season success in the league. Second how good would this team look if Gute didnt start the year by trading away a talented if inconsistent player for a backup quarterback? Randall went on to record 4 picks this year in his first year as an NFL FS and he's been showing the range of a true centerfielder... something we havent had since Collins. What did Deshone Kizer show beyond looking like Brett Hundley with a slightly better arm, and less poise? Then you've got the complete decimation of the safety position with the cutting of Whitehead and the trading of Dix. Is it any wonder that our defense cant seem to keep anyone below 30 points?
Second look at the draft picks over the last few years because we have been picking up talent on Offense despite limited picks on that side of the ball. Unfortunately we've been pumping draft picks into Dom Capers black hole of a defense for the better part of the last decade and most of these guys flopped here. Then youve got guys that Capers failed to utilize like Heyward, Hyde and Randall who went on to have success elsewhere. Would we have drafted injury prone Kevin King if we had a stronger healthier secondary unit heading into the 2017 draft?
Third our Offensive scheme is genuinely bad. Its the type of offense that needs multiple pro bowl caliber receivers to work consistently and a top notch pass blocking offensive line. No, we did not win a super bowl with this kind of ********. Rather we relied on more of a traditional WCO that really did work the whole field instead of constantly hunting for big plays against deep coverages and a pass rush teeing off on every snap.
This team would look better with a 60/40 pass run split, and yes Aaron would take less sacks if he focused on attacking defenses where they are weak instead of trying to drive it down field and extend the play constantly against defenses that basically know exactly what we're doing.
Defensively it would have looked like a different unit with Randall playing single high safety for us this year. Dix never had the range to play that role and was more of an interchangeable safety, meaning youd need another safety much like him manning the other spot. We could have played Dix more towards the intermediate routes exclusively or rolled with Josh Jones in the box where he's looked pretty good. We would have seen more big plays more sacks and less points surrendered.
Sorry, but this whole rant is just full of flawed points and way off base.
1. Doesn't matter what TT did from 2005-2014 or somewhat thereabouts, this is a what have you done for me lately league, and lately he has done nothing.
2. Guess you didn't get the memo that both Randall and HHCD wanted out. Yup they wanted out, so Gute just did what he had to do.
And no he didn't trade Randall for Kizer, he traded him for picks. The Browns just said "Here take this garbage with you" about Kizer because they decided they were going to go with Mayfield.
Make no mistake, Capers was here too long and Randall probably is better at S than Williams, Whitehead and Brice, but I really think his value and impact is being overestimated, and Whitt would've had him out of position anyway.
3. You're really confusing scheme and available personnel with this offense. MM certainly screwed things up with this offense over the years, but the year we won the SB we had one of the deepest receiving corps in football. Jordy and Jones were our 3 and 4 behind Jennings and Driver, hence why Rodgers would often say those guys would be the number ones and twos on any other team. Unfortunately over the last few years and especially this one we don't have that kind of depth in our receiving corps, hence maybe why we didn't see MM using the shotgun 4 or 5 WR spread packages as much this year. But I would say he stuck a little too much to the traditional WCO which may be a little too obsolete in the day of the RPO. Add to that Jimmy Graham who has lost a ton of athleticism from his hay day in New Orleans when he'd go jumping up and snaring in ridiculous catches off the backs of defenders, or making those catches and dragging defenders 10 yards before going down. He looks a decent number 2 possession TE, but he definitely is not an upgrade over what we had with Cook.
Sorry but this roster does not have deep talent on offense
