Those good things came to an end few years back, apparently. We all got too comfy living off past successes.
The fall started when we drafted Elam in 2013. He was instrumental in a great franchise demise.
Elam and Art Brown.
Way to replace Ed and Ray.
We did eventually get CJ though. The drafting has been a lot better since 2013... Though 2015 looks like a dud. 2016 and 2017 look to be damn good.
I'm as mad at Ozzie as the next guy.. But his big picture plan has put is in a really good position for the next few years... Even with the bad cap room. Short term, yeah it looks bleak. I ain't worried for the long haul though. Literally, I expect us to go all in on offense this offseason. It's an obvious play, but sometimes that's the smart play. As much as some of you don't want to admit it, the defense has gotten better than it was last year talent wise. Pass rush looks a HELL of a lot better and frankly.. If we had Tavon Young I wouldn't want to throw against us at all. Humphrey also looks like the real deal and I think he supplants Carr soon.
Personally, I hope Pagano is fired and we bring him on as DC when Harbaugh goes somewhere else.
Or better yet. Hire Teryl Austin, and have him pick some offensive coordinator. Being a defensive minded team kind of suits the franchise and we've put ourselves in a really good position talent wise to have a dominant defense for the next half decade if we can stay healthy and get a few more solid players.
My dream scenario is that the saints fire Sean Payton the same time we fire Harbaugh, and then we go pick up Payton and sign Pagano to be the defensive coordinator. Payton would FINALLY have a guy who knows how to draft defensive players and has good defensive personel and if anyone can revive Joe's career: it's him. Or he'd be brilliant in helping develop a young QB as well if Flacco never gets better. Not to mention we'd also have a guy as a HC who has an eye for offensive talent and would be a draw some offensive talent in FA.
It's unlikely, but hey, dream scenario.
What I think happens is that we hire Teryl Austin. I have no idea who we'd keep at OC(I think Roman would stay. IDK. I just have a good feeling about him. The presence of bootlegs and whatnot is clearly from him as we haven't seen a lot of them over the past two years. Plus Roman's running scheme is working at Hurst and Skura are bad at Guard, which is baffling to me). But Austin makes a ton of sense imo. Familiar with the franchise, very good defensive mind. I also think that we'd be able to snag Ted Monachino back from Indianapolis and possibly sign Rob Chudzinski as an OC(let's be real.. These two aren't the problem with that organization. It's literally the Andrew Luck and TY Hilton show).
