Preseason Predictions Thread

[GTripp0012]

Originally Posted by GoSkins!

Orakpo, Fletcher, Kerrigan, Griffin, Davis, Williams, Coefield, Morris, and wait for it...... Hall. (compare his stats to Carr)

I'm very comfortable with the Redskins top end talent, but Hall's numbers are much more comparable to Claiborne's than Carr's. And Claiborne is either a rookie who will improve, or a Top Ten draft bust. He has to be better than he was last season.

The Skins top end talent list has a potentially great TE coming off an achillies injury, without any great season to date, and 38 year old London Fletcher. Maybe sports medicine is at a point where Davis is truly 100% and maybe Fletcher will have another great season before retirement, but the "maybes" are what pushes a guy off a top-end talent list for me.

Everyone else you put up there would be on my Redskins top-end talent list.

[GTripp0012]

Originally Posted by CRedskinsRule

Yes you specifically disagreed with me by saying their depth is like ours, I specifically listed out the comparable offensive depth chart, and they are not as you said earlier : "Their depth is like ours, it's highly concentrated." It's just blatantly wrong.

"Blatantly wrong" would imply that there was something easily refutable about it, but all you offered was one of the most over-optimistic defenses of some players on our roster who just barely made the cut. The argument in favor of the Redskins depth over Dallas isn't that we're in a completely different league, but rather that we go 53 deep, and Dallas has struggled in recent years. When you go point by point through the roster, it's hard to create the idea that it's really different unless you already bought into that idea before you started.

Which you did.

Depth is not for "starting quality" it's for the ability to play at a position with the least amount of dropoff if called upon.

I'm not going to quibble over your definition of depth, other than to say that every team in the league qualifies as having depth by it, so then you get to a point where you're rating backups based on a really small number of plays and concluding that one team "has depth" and another does not.

Given that you saw the whole Redskins preseason, I'm not surprised that you arrived at the conclusions you did. You're familiar with our roster = our roster has depth. The Cowboys have struggled with depth in the past = their roster lacks depth. Two different standards.

No one is arguing that the Cowboys have depth but the Redskins do not. I am just pointing out that you can not be a really deep team if you don't have OL depth, don't have secondary depth, and seems to be distrusting of it's receiver depth. Those positions are, what, 40% of the roster? Having depth on 60% of the roster (every other position) is fantastic. But it's not like a lot of the league isn't in the same boat. The Cowboys are in that same boat. Which is not to defend Dallas' depth at all. They're thin at some key positions. But it's not their biggest organizational issue.

I said almost all our OL is starting quality, I don't really think Polumbus should be starting in a non-zone blocking, or straight drop type offense, but he does fit the bare minimum for what our offense needs most of the time, the backups all are cross trained (minus Compton) and we could suffer a loss at one position(excluding our Stud LT), and not have our line deteriorate completely. There just aren't many teams that have starting quality OL backups, and maybe only 1 or two who could replace their LT without a drop in performance. Bottomline, you are setting a false goal if you think any team has 8 starting quality OL, and I certainly never claimed or implied we did.

We don't disagree here.

But we are in trouble if one of our young backups HAS to play for a majority of the season. As backups, it doesn't really matter how ready they are. Once they are forced into the lineup, they can't be hidden.

[GTripp0012]

Originally Posted by Skinzman

Carr also had better help from safeties. Hall had basically none. Safeties have a fair say in that particular stat unless its a true shut down corner that is left on an island the whole time. Which neither Carr nor Hall are.

Aren't the Dallas safeties one of the more obvious areas of concern throughout the league?

[GoSkins!]

Originally Posted by GTripp0012

I'm very comfortable with the Redskins top end talent, but Hall's numbers are much more comparable to Claiborne's than Carr's. And Claiborne is either a rookie who will improve, or a Top Ten draft bust. He has to be better than he was last season.

The Skins top end talent list has a potentially great TE coming off an achillies injury, without any great season to date, and 38 year old London Fletcher. Maybe sports medicine is at a point where Davis is truly 100% and maybe Fletcher will have another great season before retirement, but the "maybes" are what pushes a guy off a top-end talent list for me.

Everyone else you put up there would be on my Redskins top-end talent list.

I had to list Hall. I know how much you like him so I couldn't resist. I agree with your overall perspective and analysis. I think the skins and cowpokes are close in terms of talent. The Cowboys have the edge in individual talent, we have an edge in team/system talent. Hard to explain that except through wins and losses, especially in head to head games.

[GTripp0012]

Originally Posted by GoSkins!

I had to list Hall. I know how much you like him so I couldn't resist. I agree with your overall perspective and analysis. I think the skins and cowpokes are close in terms of talent. The Cowboys have the edge in individual talent, we have an edge in team/system talent. Hard to explain that except through wins and losses, especially in head to head games.

I figured, but I still responded to be safe. Or sorry. Or whatever I was.

The original point is the Cowboys are an extreme outlier. They DO have all these players who are worth a ton of money to other teams, and they do have a quality roster, and for three consecutive years, they haven't figured out how to make it work over a 16 game season. The idea that if they just brought everyone back, they would figure it out this year is a VERY flawed premise. They are not MORE talented than in recent years. And they are likely doomed to the same fate.

All of this is true about the Cowboys, but it's also been true of the Redskins prior to 2012. It's always a little jarring when Redskins fans have short memories.

I'm not trying to crush anyones optimism before the season, I am just saying that the Redskins still have to prove to the fans that they are moving in the right direction. We can use 2012 as a stepping stone to much better things in 2013: we have the roster to do it. As we did in 2006 and 2009. I believe this year is different. But it won't take a whole lot to scare me into believing it isn't. I'm the textbook definition of cautiously optimistic about this season.

[Skinzman]

Originally Posted by GTripp0012

Aren't the Dallas safeties one of the more obvious areas of concern throughout the league?

Why would the rest of the league have obvious concerns for Dallas safeties?

And there is no way they were worse than Madieu Williams and Doughty in pass coverage. Hall and Wilson were on an island whether they liked it or not all year.

[GTripp0012]

Originally Posted by Skinzman

Why would the rest of the league have obvious concerns for Dallas safeties?

And there is no way they were worse than Madieu Williams and Doughty in pass coverage. Hall and Wilson were on an island whether they liked it or not all year.

The Dallas corners were on the same islands.

[Skinzman]

Originally Posted by GTripp0012

The Dallas corners were on the same islands.

And teams actually ran against Dallas, limiting their passes against. They might have been bad, but no way their safeties were as bad as ours. When it comes to pass coverage, there were no worse safeties than what we had last year. Maybe New Orleans, but I doubt it.

[MTK]

New Orleans gave up the most yards in NFL history last year. I think their safeties may have played a role in that.

[CultBrennan59]

^Check your messages

[Skinzman]

Originally Posted by Mattyk

New Orleans gave up the most yards in NFL history last year. I think their safeties may have played a role in that.

I did mention NO, or did you miss that? Plus they were terrible everywhere. Our D-line and LB's were easily better than NO's. But we are specifically talking about safeties in pass coverage, not safeties in supporting the run or overall defense.

[MTK]

Originally Posted by Skinzman

I did mention NO, or did you miss that? Plus they were terrible everywhere. Our D-line and LB's were easily better than NO's. But we are specifically talking about safeties in pass coverage, not safeties in supporting the run or overall defense.

Our safeties weren't worse than theirs. That's why I said that.

[Skinzman]

Originally Posted by Mattyk

Our safeties weren't worse than theirs. That's why I said that.

When talking strictly about pass coverage, I still doubt it.

[MTK]

Originally Posted by Skinzman

When talking strictly about pass coverage, I still doubt it.

They gave up more passing yards, more yards per attempt, less INTs, etc.

The Bucs had the worst pass D overall.

[Skinzman]

Originally Posted by Mattyk

They gave up more passing yards, more yards per attempt, less INTs, etc.

The Bucs had the worst pass D overall.

You seem to be fixating on overall D. We are specifically talking about safeties in only pass defense, not overall safety play as ours were decent in run support. And Doughty, at times, was much better than that in run support.

Madieu Williams couldnt even figure out what over the top meant and Doughty knew what it meant but was usually to slow to pull it off.