[Oldcolt]

Originally Posted by ukcolt

To start with....Burrow has never won the Superbowl!

I think your assessment of the linebackers is also wrong. Were Cincy's linebackers bad last year? Yeah, of course, but they were both rookies, who should improve, remember Allen is the equivalent of Knight last year.

Going off topic, I am concerned with the amount of faith generally that is being placed on guys from this years draft and from those in last years draft class as well.

Yes, Warren was great and hopefully continues to ascend, but JTT was really poor for most of the year, Walley didn't play at all, Travis looked good from a small sample size, but who really knows how good he will be this year? Giddens barely played, Leonard saw some action, and looked promising, but is certainly unproven, Smith was on the practice squad all year, and Wohler was on IR.

So we are anointing CJ Allen as the starter, but he was selected in a similar position to JTT last year, are we expecting too much from someone this far into the draft? Haulcy, it appears to be his starting job to lose, with no NFL experience at all. Farmer is being talked up massively, is it realistic to expect a 4th round guard to start? Not that i think this is a need necessarily.

I think we have some players with potential, but other than Warren and Travis, none of them have actually proven to play to an acceptable level already to be relied upon for real game time action.

Now that's not to say that some of them won't be big time contributors this year, I just feel that it appears as if we are going into this season relying on a huge amount of playing time from guys who are entirely unproven as starters.

I could not agree more. Plus people get hurt and we have zilch sitting behind these guys. Add to the fact that folks here (and the Colts)are talking like we have a real winner in Leonard, which is incredibly important with the injury status of Jones. To me this guy is a journeyman backup at best. Moody is one fall from retirement and we didn't address the pass rush this off season. I am as unjuiced and depressed about this upcoming season as I have been about any Colt season in the past 60 years. I hope I am wrong but I see another season of futility for us, just like the last decade has been.