Excited to see our preseason depth

[ukcolt]

I am actually really looking forward to this preseason. It feels as if we will actually still be watching some quality football, especially on offense.

The offensive line will have the likes of Freeland, Goncalves, French, Bortolini, Witt as the 2nd string lineup.
And then you have Sills, Hambright, Pinter and Lewis Kidd, all of whom have had some real gametime experience in the regular season as the third string.

That in my opinion is at least 11 guys who deserve to be on opening day NFL rosters.


The TE group goes 5 deep all of whom again are NFL roster ready for any team. Problem here is that i am not sure who is really a true starting calibre guy, hopefully Woods is the guy to step up.


WR's, take out Pittman and Downs, and then you have Pierce, Mitchell, Dulin and Gould taking 2nd/3rd team reps after that not sure that there is much to get excited about.

We have a genuine NFL starting quality backup QB option with Flacco, to run things effectively. Then you have the usual 3rd, 4th stringers where the play will likely drop off immensely.

RB is our biggest area of concern regards depth, but hopefully with the supporting cast around them, they will be able to produce, as the offensive line will hopefully be able to holdup in preseason for a change! We have 3 guys Sermon, Hull and Goodson, none of them have proven anything significant in the NFL as of yet. Hopefully one of them proves their worth as Taylor's backup.


On defense, our defensive line is so incredibly deep it is almost stupid.

At DE the starters are going to be Paye and Ebukam. To begin with at least we will be using Latu outside of the starters, probably with Dayo as well. They are then backed up by Lewis (started 16 games in his career) and Genard Avery (he has started 17 games), these are followed by the promising Isaiah Land and Titus Leo.

DT we obviously have the clear starters in Buckner and Stewart, but we will get to see Davis, Adebawore, Johnson, Bryan and rookie 7th rounder Laulu.

That totals 8 DE's, if you remove Leo, all of the rest of them in my opinion are bona fide NFL opening day roster talented guys. The DT's where i have 7 listed, again remove Laulu and then i think you have 6 guys who are highly likely capable of making opening day rosters.

Now the LBer room is a different matter, i think our 2 starters are fine Speed and Franklin, Carlies is a rookie 5th round pick who is a bit of a project, After that i suspect the likes of Stuard, Olubi, McGrone, and the rest of the names i had never heard of when i looked at the roster, are likely going to struggle to make most rosters. Olubi, did show a little something last year, but i am questioning just how good or not that he is. Although to be fair to Ballard, he seems to be able to spot talent at LB in the lower rounds. You could add Harrison into this group, but i believe he is a bit of a hybrid player and he is mentioned in the safety group.

The corner back room has lots of questions, Kenny Moore and Brents are the unquestioned guys. I think Flowers and Jones make the back ends of most rosters, Jaylin Simpson is a rookie project who is at the bottom of the roster, but the remaining guys I am not so sure about. So the likes of Darrell Baker, Micah Abraham, Lammons, Ameer Speed, are all unlikely to make most NFL rosters. This is a position i am looking forward to seeing, but I am not especially confident that i will like what i see in preseason. I might not even like the starters.

At safety i am comfortable with Blackmon, so long as he is fully back from injury. Cross, Thomas and Harrison are probably 1 spot each too high on the depth chart, as in none of them should be starting, all are fine as depth pieces. Denbow, Dabo, and the other names i don't know, are all guys who would struggle to make NFL rosters. It is a real shame about Daniel Scott, had high hopes for him being the 2nd starter.

So i think we are strong at offensive line, with the potential of having to cut 3 guys who could quite easily make most rosters. Strong depth at TE, likely to cut 1 guy who should be an NFL player. WR's QB's and RB, we have just about the required numbers, with all players likely to be cut, not deserving of opening day roster status.

On defense there are 13 defensive line players who i think are good enough to play on opening day, but we are only likely going to keep 9 maybe 10 guys. We are going to be shedding so real quality talent here. Guys with the potential to be part time starters and not just bottom of the roster guys. Maybe we try to trade a few players here. After that i would say the LB's, CB's and Safeties are all probably underwhelming in terms of depth, and i actually think we could end up trying to bring in additional talent to fill out the roster. Going to be cutting guys who are just not rosterable for most teams.