Fox says Portis up; Defense down

I think we'll have a top 5 D again, I don't see Smoot and Pierce as being guys that are irreplaceable.

Little do they know, keep downplaying the 'Skins and see what happens

I think we'll have a top 5 D again, I don't see Smoot and Pierce as being guys that are irreplaceable.
Exactly. Pierce was a one year phenom, not to diminish his accomplishments but there's a reason that he was a reserve going into last year.. Smoot is an excellent CB but he's aruguably not in the top 10 in the league as far as CB go. Harris/Rogers should be sufficient in replacing him.

champ bailey was 10 times better than smoot and his loss did'nt have a negative effect on the d, so i don't see the loss of smoot as a reason to say the skins d will not be as good as last year, nor do i see the loss of pierce as reason for concern.
both players were good for us but both players will be replaced by very capable players.

Little do they know, keep downplaying the 'Skins and see what happens

I'm with you Jamaica'Skin.

And good post, Crisp. I especially agree with your point about the D-line. To my mind, if Daniels can return to form, he IS an upgrade there. But the main point is that Williams and Blache have a cohesive unit that knows how to stop the run and occupy blockers to free up the LBs and the blitzers.

And isn't this the first year we have the SAME coordinator as the year before?

Williams isn't a magician--he's a kick ass coach who creates top 10 Ds wherever he goes, with whatever talent is there. It's not magic--it's hard work and skill.

In my opinion, we experianced some losses on defense, mainly Peirce and Smoot, but like Joe pointed out, we have some gains. One gain that I think is not getting enough attention is the return of Lavar Arrington. Now, I know that alot of Skins' fans and football fans in general are very critical of Arrington. Now weather his contract and whatnot is better for our team is a question, however when you put Lavar and Lemar Marshal side by side, Arrington is a huge upgrade there. In addition, the return of Daniels to the Dline, it just adds up. I still think it will be tough for us to maintain the same type of momentum we had on D last season, but I defintley dont think we will fall much at all.

We have the same scheme as last season with a decent amount of starters coming back. Why would the D drop off?
Makes no sense to me at all. Top three, possible top D.

Offense will pick it up with improved play calling and more variety (shotgun) making us a shockingly efficient team.

Williams isn't a magician--he's a kick ass coach who creates top 10 Ds wherever he goes, with whatever talent is there. It's not magic--it's hard work and skill.

Well put, JWsleep. I can't say enough good things about Williams-- sharpest human being I've ever met, and I'd imagine with a mind like that he's always working. How can he rest when his brain is so full of cool stuff to work with?

I think we'll have a top 5 D again, I don't see Smoot and Pierce as being guys that are irreplaceable.

i agree totally we should have a top 5 D again as although we have lost pierce and smoot GW says he wants to play Barrow at MLB so theres that problem solved and smoot isn't that big a loss especially if we can cope with the loss of champ a year earlier

what i noticed this reviewer was to choose one Fantasy position that would go up and one that would go down.

Obviously it would be hard to say that our offense would go down because it was as low as us fans could possibly handle until we started to riot. So he was left with our D but it seems that most of us agree that GW will not let this D fall out of the top 5.

MOVING ON UP IN THE LEAGUE