This is going to be contrarian day for me. I'm happy we drafted Chase - wanted this pick all along. I believe the rotation along the front four will be great. The difference maker, IMO, will be JDR. He's going to have to be very creative - good as it can be, it aint an 85 Bears defense. I still see the secondary as a liability and the LB core as exposed against teams with good play action offenses. Right now, I think it will be fun watching this defense. In the main, however, I think it will only buy the team two MAYBE three more victories over last season. I say this without knowing the rest of the draft, undrafted signings or downstream signings. So a lot can chage. The core problem remains the same: overall talent level, too many roster uncertainties/gaps and a bad offense.
The real drain on our defense, again looked at now and subject to change, is going to be the offense. If you look at the O, today, it's really pretty bad. O-line as consitututed , IMO, is more QB injuries waiting to happen. Too many gaps: no real TE threat, no speed threat on the outside (we'll see what happens draft day 2; maybe Sims develops, drops fewer passes and makes better decisions), a liability at RT, uncertainty for LG, an unfortunate twist of events that escalates the importance of retaining a disgruntled LT (that's if the team cares about opreserving its QBs so they can at least walk off the field after a game), an aging RB, a RG who has been injury prone, a first round QB who has potential but at this point can't seem to singularly focus on becomng the master of his craft vice a social media chatty cathy.
Many of the teams in the league are loading up on offense with speed as they mimic the Chiefs. This defense is going to be mainly predicated on producing a fierce pass rush and controlling the line. Behind stands some decent talent, but only one upper tier player (Collins). The forumla for beating the Skins next season is pretty obvious: severe pressure on Haskins/Allen, bottle the running game, score fast and early with a diversified, speedy passing attack. If your offense is, at best average, scoring 17-21 points a game isn't going to buy much improvemen; it will place huge pressure on the defense.
Not news, but the offense is a huge problem for this team. Throw in, IMO, an OC who is nothing special, and the formula for another high draft pick is in place for next year.
A key player in all of this? Kyle! Huge pressure on him to pull white rabbits out of the proverbial black hat in the third, fourth and fifth rounds.