Uncertainty at TE, will Reed remain uninjured? Is Niles Paul even going to make the team?
LG and Center are both weaknesses. Spencer Long was an improvement at C, but still not a true NFL C...it helps having a great RG next to him, but on the other side? That's the biggest offensive weakness. Lavaou is still the starter, which means the youth cannot displace a poor LG.
WR, you guys can googoo all over Terelle Pryor all you want, but he's only one player. I like Jamison Crowder and have stated I believe he can do some of what Desean Jackson can do, but he has to prove he can...uncertain. Josh Doctson can continue to abuse a poor CB in Breeland in practice, but he has done nothing on the field either because of injury. We have no proven WR on the team...and yes, I'm saying Terelle Pryor is unproven, he had one very good season for a team that had to throw the ball all the time to try to come back...they're called trash time stats.
RB? That's not a weakness? Rob Kelly appears to be the starter, he's not a starting RB in this league...he's a very solid backup. Last year was proof he could not carry the entire load. Perine is a rookie, can he? Who knows? But he hasn't proven anything yet. Chris Thompson is a very solid 3rd down back and has proven he can fill in just fine on limited carries.
Cousins is stilla weakness in the big game, until he shows otherwise.
Fear, you're wearing burgundy and gold glasses if you truly believe this offense has no weaknesses. They're there, you choose not to see them.
The terms of my statement are really getting mis-interpreted.
I said it's "very possible" that the offense will have "zero weaknesses".
But it's being translated as if "very possible" means a total certainty. And translated as if having "zero weaknesses" means perfection.
Gruden says he "fully expects" Reed to be ready for the season opener.
Niles Paul is a virtual lock to be the 3rd TE. Havn't you always raved about his ST abilities in the past, which make him so valuable ? But even in the chance Paul doesn't make the team, that's actually completely irrelevant to my statement.
I'm talking about the 11 men we DO put on the field on offense. So I don't understand why you would bring up someone who you believe may NOT be on the roster.
LG and Center, we're not even done with. They're looking at replacing Long with Roullier. And replacing Lavao with Long.
Pryor compiled his stats with 5 different scrubs at QB. That says something. And they're not trash-time stats. If that were true, then all of the bottom-feeder teams would have a receiver with Pryor's numbers. But they don't.
Doctson, in a small window, in the regular season last year, proved what he can do against NFL starters. There is really no legitimate reason to doubt what he can do in this league.
RB is automatically an upgrade with Perine. You keep bringing up the word "unproven". But again, I did not say it was a certainty. The term was "very possible", meaning there is strong reason to believe he will make the backfield better. And Kelly is in better shape than he was last year, and with another year experience under his belt.
And Cousins ? We're talking about "weaknesses", and you bring up our best player on offense, and the best player on our team, easily a Top 10 QB, and quite possibly a Top 5 QB. How is Cousins even remotely a weakness at QB ? It sounds as if your definition of not having a weakness, means reaching perfection.
This is the offense that there's a high likelihood that we field (the Roullier/Long move may take some time, and likely not at the season opener) :
Pryor
Doctson
Crowder
Reed
Moses
Scherff
Roullier
Long
Williams
Cousins
Perine/Kelly/Thompson rotation, with Paul at both FB/TE
That lineup there looks solid from top to bottom.
Again, I said it's very possible we end up with this lineup, and it's very possible that none of them is going to be a serious weak link.
I didn't say they were all going to be Pro-Bowlers.
A weakness, I would define as a position with someone below average.
I think Fear's post misses the point though, as even with the 'loss' (an overhyped one imo) of some offensive juice, it will be improvements on defense that make or break us this year.
While it may be true that our overall success hinges greatly on how much our defense has improved, my statement was directed exclusively at the offense, and not the defense, or the overall team.
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