05-16-2022, 04:26 PM
(05-14-2022, 09:53 AM)Soonerpeace Wrote: I think that barring injuries to significant players this team could go 12-5. That would be almost as impressive as last season which will be hard to top. The schedule is brutal and the AFC ridiculous. 12-5 would be monumental. Vegas has the Bills and Bucs the most wins at 11.5. So Vegas says absolutely no way.
I think the defense will take a step forward not back. Why? I think Lou has big plans for teams with a lot of special packages. I think he’s got designs on substitution groups using a core of about 18 players. I also think that we will start faster. Taylor is old school. He likes to set up plays that will result in big plays due to setting things up. He basically schemes for later. That sometimes necessitates running plays that aren’t likely to be highly successful. He’s saving the hollow point bullets for later. But I think the offense’s biggest difference will be consistently getting something out of nothing that happened so much last year. We struggled establishing the run yet we had to stick with it. The offense was explosive last year. This years about controlling games.
It is true the AFC is stacked. I was saying 13-4 after Free Agency and the Draft but 12-5 is probably more realistic with this
schedule. Some of these AFC teams are so good that we will have close games and the Offense with the ball last will win.
I just think with an actual elite running game with our new OL we might not have as many close games as we have had the
last few years. If we can run the ball well, take pressure off of Burrow and keep our Defense fresh we will be one of if not the
best team in the NFL this year. Amazing we went as far as we did in the Playoffs with such poor OL play.
Our Defense and Kicker deserve most of the credit. I don't expect either to backslide, they should only build off of what they
did in the postseason.
