Jonathan Allen didn't have his best season in 2023. He seemed off from the beginning of the season.
He also had plantar fasciitis, which for all we know stuck with him the entire season.
Payne made the type of regression to the mean that many of us expected. He's a solid player who was out there for each game. He is not a consistent uber-playmaking DT in the mold of Aaron Donald or Chris Jones however. I don't expect to see 10 plus sacks from him again.
I was adamantly opposed to giving him an extension. But I was also adamantly opposed to giving any of them extensions.
The DE's after the trades need a complete overhaul. There are some useful depth players here but no guys projecting into starters for 2024.
It was entirely stupid to have all of the DEs on the team going to FA at the same time. When people talk about roster construction, well, here's an example of bad roster construction.
They need to find another starting edge player in FA and probably draft a couple in later rounds. Early rounds should be focused on QB and OL, and literally nothing else. They have 4 spots to fill on the OL. They won't be able to do it in FA.
They're probably just going to have to live with having developmental, second tier edge defenders for a year unless they hit on a gem in the late rounds somewhere.
The DL would be helped if Phidarian Mathis lived up to his billing as a #2 pick and allowed the team to use a 3 man rotation at DT.
My guy has had some bad luck with injury. Lost an entire season due to injury, and the first part of last season. This is put up or shut up year for him. He's got to develop into the solid #3 and stay healthy.
I do think better scheme is going to make all of the defensive players look better, though. It looks like Jack was maybe not as bad a DC here as Joe Barry and Greg Manusky, but certainly not that much better.
My God, we went from Gregg Williams, who knew stuff about defense and was a good coach (for all of his other sins), to Mr. Read and React Greg Blache, to no idea what he's doing Jim Hazlett, to statistically the worst defensive coordinator in the history of the NFL Joe Barry, to meathead moron Greg Manusky to fake tough guy Jack Del Rio.
That's some lineup of bad DCs. My goodness.