Being Optimistic

[CJD]

When I look at this team vs the 2020 team, I see the following clear upgrades:

CB group
We lost William Jackson III, Mackensie Alexander and LeShaun Sims and replaced them with Trae Waynes (coming off of injury counts here since we're comparing the active teams, not what contracts were signed), Chidobe Awuzie and Mike Hilton and added depth with Eli Apple. Darius Phillips remains in both cases for even more depth.

DT Group
We lost Geno Atkins, Mike Daniels (for now unsigned), Christian Covington and Xavier Williams and replaced them with DJ Reader (see Waynes above), Josh Tupou (coming back from COVID exemption) and Larry Ogunjobi. Hopefully we draft someone or sign Daniels back to fill out the room, but those are some pretty good upgrades overall.

OT Group
We replaced Bobby Hart with Riley Reiff. That alone is an insane upgrade. Ideally, we continue to add to this group in the draft

OG Group
XSF will be coming back full time after missing over half the season with an injury and Spain is now here for the full season with an off season to boot. We may yet sign a veteran free agent like Trai Turner and/or I also anticipate us addressing this position in the draft at some point. Maybe Sewell or Slater plays here their rookie season and kicks out to OT in year 2 or if an injury occurs. But we're removing Fred Johnson (good OT, awful guard) and Michael Jordan (Awful everything) from the conversation and that alone is a huge upgrade, even if you replaced them with inanimate objects on the field.

RB Group
Once again, Mixon was injured the majority of the season. Getting him back from injury is an obvious upgrade.

TE Group
CJ taking over for Sample will be an upgrade. CJ played really well in the 2 games he had with Burrow. That connection seemed to be one of Burrow's first real connections with any of his receivers (first career passing TD, the 2nd highest yards and 3rd highest yards in his first 2 games, having left halfway through the 2nd game). It's clear Joe likes using his TE.

The only areas I see that we have become worse is WR, because we're losing a lot of snaps in AJ Green (although most of them were below replacement level, so it should be easy to address this in the 3rd wave of free agency or the draft) for the time being and Center if Hopkins is not back in time for week 1.

We are treading water at Special Teams (not that that's a bad thing, because our ST were really good last year), LB and S, for the most part.

I know some people will say we upgraded at DE. I think it's a toss up. Lawson could break out in 2021 even more so than he already has (his peripherals were off the charts in 2020), but Trey may continue his break out as well. If we sign Ryan Kerrigan, then I think this becomes more of a clear upgrade. I also anticipate us paying attention to this position in the draft.

Finally, I'd be remiss if I did not mention Joe Burrow. He's not technically an upgrade because he did play half of the season and may struggle coming back from an injury, but he is the center of our fanbase's optimism at this point.

TL;DR
Upgraded since 2020:
CB, DT, OT, OG, RB, TE, QB (coming off injury vs more experience may be a wash, but he'll be back regardless)
Downgraded:
WR (for now), Center (depending on injury status)
Treading Water:
DE (arguable, pending Kerrigan free agency visit), ST, LB, S

We had a lot of injuries to key players and with those players back in addition to the free agent signings, I think we're already much improved compared to the team that took the field in 2020. Add to that a competent OL coach and an entire draft that has yet to happen, we're looking vastly improved and could potentially make a playoff run if all the pieces come together. I could see us making an improvement similar to the 2019 vs 2020 Browns.