"Running it back" - Not so fast

Did you read my earlier post?

The people who are talking about 'running it back' are talking about the roster and keeping most of Spielman's key guys and doing very similar things to what he was doing the past couple seasons.

First of all everything should be talked about as if its played in 2022...Ill go into the ones that matter

Griffen over Z smith??? Stop it. Hunter and Z smith has a POSSIBILITY to be better combo than Griff and Hunter ever were. If your factoring in health, you have to factor in Griffs as well, he is way over the hill, had some solid snaps last year but nowhere near the old Griff in a lot of ways. Z smith > Griff in 2022 easily.

RG- you have to compare Davis to Udoh not Mason cole..Again Ill go Davis just because cant be much worse than Udoh you know what you have.

Phillips/Pierce..Im not going to pretend I know much about Philips but Ill call it a wash as Pierce was never available for the most part.

Mac/Sullivan- Mac was one of the lowest rated corners in the slot..Sullivan not much better rated but still young. Ill go Sullivan, as it cant be worse

barr/Hicks- Barr actually had a good year last year I thoguht he played better than Kendricks, but still you always factor in missing games. Id still take Barr, but no by much.

There seems to be a common theme..Most of the guys gone have missed a lot of time, are older guys who we know who they are. I dont think you can say we got worse anywhere. Did we get significantly better? I dont think so at all. But Ill take new guys in a new scheme I haven't seen before over the guys we lost. Z smith is the huge X factor that they are banking on, but at a small price this year. Im intrigued to see how it plays out with everything, still have the draft to go.

Yup and multiple people have pointed it out already. Essentially no one is talking about the coaching staff when saying this, they are talking about the core pieces of this roster. Patrick Peterson must hate Cousins and listen to Skor North though, it's the only reason he would talk about running it back with the guys! It couldn't be that the context he/others use that phrase relates to the general core of the team...

Our best players heading into last year look to be our best players heading into this year. The key players and positions are mostly unchanged at the top. We replaced our slot CB and brought in competition for RG while TE/S are being filled with guys that were here last year. Everything else is essentially the same and those are very minor moves. There are basically no impactful additions/changes to the roster outside of the front 7 defensively.

Then those changes to help transition amount to Barr/Pierce/Griffen becoming Hicks/Phillips/Smith. That is very minor, Smith is the only real spot of potential big upgrade that we brought in. People don't have to agree that is how it should be looked at but that is the point when many fans, media (both local and national) and even players like PP talk about running it back with the same core. They mean we are running back the same core players and talent for the most part. It's not difficult to understand, the arguments against it seem to be more semantics which is whatever. Yes a lot of teams do run it back in the sense being talked about but it's usually the good teams doing so or ones with very young cores in place.

I agree that overall I would take the new group but as you get at they aren't much worse or better really. It's mostly just shuffling lower level pieces to fit a 3-4 better than anything major being added to upgrade our talent. Smith is the only real impact addition in that sense where it seems pretty clear he should be one if healthy. Others are mostly just replacements due to fit/$ on the lower end of starters. 

Cleveland is OK and I have absolutely no problem with Darrisaw and fully expect him to take a giant leap year 2. O'Neill is maybe the best RT in football. You would hope the new coaching staff can scheme around the other deficiencies. I mean every team in the NFL is going to have holes in certain places. We have a possible large hole on the middle right side of o line. At least it's not going to catch us by surprise. Really the only surprise we can catch is a positive one If something pans out over there. Coach got to know how to coach around there obvious holes or they're not very good coaches. Like I said every team has them.

In that instance I'd say you were def right.