Four consecutive years

[THE PISTONS]

(10-15-2017, 08:19 AM)OrangeLacroix Wrote: Hmm, chief.  They are 8-12-1 over the last two seasons, and going to be drafting top 10 again next year.

Their roster is bad.  Everyone else can comprehend this.

You're spitting fire today! I think people have trouble evaluating the roster because the defense is so good.

PFF or some similar site analyzed Super Bowl teams and figured out how many average starters a team was away from a Super Bowl. The premise being yes every team has some really good players but the NFL is more than just about having stars...you need your weak links to be minimal.

Our weak links, as I see them are:

1 ) 4 offensive lineman that aren't starter quality.
2 ) A WR2 that isn't starting quality. (Lafell has declined this year for whatever reason.)
3 ) TE - We counted on Eifert. Kroft shows potential...but I would say he's still a below average starter for now.
4 ) DT - Billings/Sims aren't great. The defense does a lot of things like moving MJ inside to hide this. Plus, Geno is so dominant.

So that's 7 positions. And I won't get into LB where Minter is signed for 1 year or positions like that. We'll assume they're good.

So we know that we don't rely heavily on free agency. Where do we upgrade these positions?

Is it internal development? Maybe for TE and DT. Maybe Ross eventually develops into a WR2. Maybe Ced and Fisher get better?

When you rely on internal development and they don't develop...you're in trouble though.

Things happen with 1st Round picks. Jackson getting injured was unforeseen.

Ross though? He has major injury red flags and he's small for a WR being sub-190 lbs.

Ced had an ACL injury when the Bengals drafted him. And people were like Oh he's behind because he was injured. We spent a 1st Round pick on a guy who blew out his knee 3 months earlier. Plus, he gave up a lot of sacks in college. Just a bad pick.