Being Optimistic

[Joelist]

Hi!

Here are in my opinion reasons for guarded optimism (in no particular order):

a) Turner is gone. He was not only a cancer but a terrible coach - under his tutelage linemen actually regressed. This was the first sign of intelligent life in the front office this offseason.

b) Pollack is in. We have a good line coach note with a good track record. And lest we forget we saw improved play the one season he was here, and he was respected (not to mention that under his tutelage Price was actually shaping up nicely prior to the second injury). With Pollack I don't feel like OL draft picks will be wasted the way I did with Turner.

c) So far Free Agency has actually made sense and felt like there is a plan of getting the coaches players who are strong in the scheme the coaches want to run. For example, we have basically restocked the secondary with players who actually are sound in zone coverage as opposed to our past idea of taking players best suited for man and putting them in zone. Likewise on the DL we appear to be concentrating on players who actually both generate pass rush AND finish the play.

On OL I think they handled the nature of the FA class as best as was realistically possible. The Guard pool was crazy expensive at the top and not deep so what they are doing again makes sense. Also Reiff is no contest a pretty significant upgrade at RT and fits right into the scheme Pollack favors.

Are things perfect? No. Remember I said GUARDED optimism. We still need reinforcements on the interior OL and the WR room after Tee and Tyler badly needs more playmakers. So we need to see the rest of Free Agency and the draft to tell the story of the offseason. But so far not bad.

[*rfaulk34*]

(03-25-2021, 12:45 AM)Joelist Wrote: Hi!

Here are in my opinion reasons for guarded optimism (in no particular order):

a) Turner is gone. He was not only a cancer but a terrible coach - under his tutelage linemen actually regressed. This was the first sign of intelligent life in the front office this offseason.

b) Pollack is in. We have a good line coach note with a good track record. And lest we forget we saw improved play the one season he was here, and he was respected (not to mention that under his tutelage Price was actually shaping up nicely prior to the second injury). With Pollack I don't feel like OL draft picks will be wasted the way I did with Turner.

c) So far Free Agency has actually made sense and felt like there is a plan of getting the coaches players who are strong in the scheme the coaches want to run. For example, we have basically restocked the secondary with players who actually are sound in zone coverage as opposed to our past idea of taking players best suited for man and putting them in zone. Likewise on the DL we appear to be concentrating on players who actually both generate pass rush AND finish the play.

On OL I think they handled the nature of the FA class as best as was realistically possible. The Guard pool was crazy expensive at the top and not deep so what they are doing again makes sense. Also Reiff is no contest a pretty significant upgrade at RT and fits right into the scheme Pollack favors.

Are things perfect? No. Remember I said GUARDED optimism. We still need reinforcements on the interior OL and the WR room after Tee and Tyler badly needs more playmakers. So we need to see the rest of Free Agency and the draft to tell the story of the offseason. But so far not bad.

Hopefully, that plan was focused on shoring up the defense in FA and doing something like rd1-Sewell, rd2-WR, rd3-OG, rd4-TE.

[TJ528]

(03-25-2021, 12:45 AM)Joelist Wrote: Hi!

Here are in my opinion reasons for guarded optimism (in no particular order):

a) Turner is gone. He was not only a cancer but a terrible coach - under his tutelage linemen actually regressed. This was the first sign of intelligent life in the front office this offseason.

b) Pollack is in. We have a good line coach note with a good track record. And lest we forget we saw improved play the one season he was here, and he was respected (not to mention that under his tutelage Price was actually shaping up nicely prior to the second injury). With Pollack I don't feel like OL draft picks will be wasted the way I did with Turner.

c) So far Free Agency has actually made sense and felt like there is a plan of getting the coaches players who are strong in the scheme the coaches want to run. For example, we have basically restocked the secondary with players who actually are sound in zone coverage as opposed to our past idea of taking players best suited for man and putting them in zone. Likewise on the DL we appear to be concentrating on players who actually both generate pass rush AND finish the play.

On OL I think they handled the nature of the FA class as best as was realistically possible. The Guard pool was crazy expensive at the top and not deep so what they are doing again makes sense. Also Reiff is no contest a pretty significant upgrade at RT and fits right into the scheme Pollack favors.

Are things perfect? No. Remember I said GUARDED optimism. We still need reinforcements on the interior OL and the WR room after Tee and Tyler badly needs more playmakers. So we need to see the rest of Free Agency and the draft to tell the story of the offseason. But so far not bad.

Turner is gone, but Lou is still here coaching this defense is my biggest issue.  If this defense is giving up 25+ppg after game 4 the guy should be fired.  I just don't think he's competent and I think he's the scale of Turner. 

Pollack was a good hire once again.  Crazy you let him go when a new coach comes on board and after that new head coaches option fails miserably you bring back Pollack.  Pretty sure this wasnt Zac's call.   I like it though but we can't rely on Pollack to fix a pile of crap, and that's exactly what he has to work with.  

As far as the draft and free agency, I think the team thought if they could bring in enough guys who've played in Lou's scheme the defense will be ranked at least near 20th in the league.  As far as the offensive side, I think you're going to see 7 offensive picks and maybe 1 defensive pick in the draft.  This team has to get talent for JoeyB.  You have 2 good WR, the TE's are mehh, and Mixon is only a good runner if he has a good OL.  

I do think they've done some things well in FA.  However, they still need to keep on adding pieces.  I'll be curious to see if we keep adding in FA or wait until after the June 1st cuts.  

[*Wyche'sWarrior*]

(03-25-2021, 12:45 AM)Joelist Wrote: Hi!

Here are in my opinion reasons for guarded optimism (in no particular order):

a) Turner is gone. He was not only a cancer but a terrible coach - under his tutelage linemen actually regressed. This was the first sign of intelligent life in the front office this offseason.

b) Pollack is in. We have a good line coach note with a good track record. And lest we forget we saw improved play the one season he was here, and he was respected (not to mention that under his tutelage Price was actually shaping up nicely prior to the second injury). With Pollack I don't feel like OL draft picks will be wasted the way I did with Turner.

c) So far Free Agency has actually made sense and felt like there is a plan of getting the coaches players who are strong in the scheme the coaches want to run. For example, we have basically restocked the secondary with players who actually are sound in zone coverage as opposed to our past idea of taking players best suited for man and putting them in zone. Likewise on the DL we appear to be concentrating on players who actually both generate pass rush AND finish the play.

On OL I think they handled the nature of the FA class as best as was realistically possible. The Guard pool was crazy expensive at the top and not deep so what they are doing again makes sense. Also Reiff is no contest a pretty significant upgrade at RT and fits right into the scheme Pollack favors.

Are things perfect? No. Remember I said GUARDED optimism. We still need reinforcements on the interior OL and the WR room after Tee and Tyler badly needs more playmakers. So we need to see the rest of Free Agency and the draft to tell the story of the offseason. But so far not bad.

Well, this is kinda what some of us have been saying since day 1 of the current regime. You had a TOTALLY different philosophy on both sides of the ball, that had been in place for 16 years. Not only were your starters suited for it, so was your depth. It takes time to shape a roster like that to fit your vision. The only other option would have been a complete fire sale, and restock in year 2. Looking back, that may have been the best option.

That said, here we are, no excuses to not get to 500 or better. 

[lone bengal]

Outside of upgrading at RT I feel like we’ve made some lateral moves wouldn’t say we did bad in free agency but also don’t think we’re significantly better. Far as finding guys that fit our system I’m still not confident this coaching staff knows what there doing based on there 6-25-1 record and there previous lack of experience. We hired an offensive minded head coach who hasn’t shown much creativity and only coached QB’s prior. We’ve been signing a ton of defensive players the last 2 years to fit Anarumo’s “scheme” which I don’t know if it even works because he’s never been a DC before and his defense has been awful at times. I don’t mind Pollock but I feel like some fans are making him out to be a savior and Turner a scapegoat just like Alexander before him. You can only do so much with bad offensive lineman. The run O was good under Polllack but Hart had his worst season , Remond was still awful and Glenn wasn’t great. I think having Boling gave us some stability he kicked out to LT a few games and did well.

[*Wyche'sWarrior*]

(03-25-2021, 09:30 AM)TJ528 Wrote: Turner is gone, but Lou is still here coaching this defense is my biggest issue.  If this defense is giving up 25+ppg after game 4 the guy should be fired.  I just don't think he's competent and I think he's the scale of Turner. 

Pollack was a good hire once again.  Crazy you let him go when a new coach comes on board and after that new head coaches option fails miserably you bring back Pollack.  Pretty sure this wasnt Zac's call.   I like it though but we can't rely on Pollack to fix a pile of crap, and that's exactly what he has to work with.  

As far as the draft and free agency, I think the team thought if they could bring in enough guys who've played in Lou's scheme the defense will be ranked at least near 20th in the league.  As far as the offensive side, I think you're going to see 7 offensive picks and maybe 1 defensive pick in the draft.  This team has to get talent for JoeyB.  You have 2 good WR, the TE's are mehh, and Mixon is only a good runner if he has a good OL.  

I do think they've done some things well in FA.  However, they still need to keep on adding pieces.  I'll be curious to see if we keep adding in FA or wait until after the June 1st cuts.  

Pollack left on his own accord, from what I recall, both the FO and Zac wanted him to stay.

..... and Mixon is good when healthy. He ran behind a bad line the two years prior and had pretty good numbers, all things considered.

[TJ528]

(03-25-2021, 09:35 AM)Wyche Wrote: Well, this is kinda what some of us have been saying since day 1 of the current regime. You had a TOTALLY different philosophy on both sides of the ball, that had been in place for 16 years. Not only were your starters suited for it, so was your depth. It takes time to shape a roster like that to fit your vision. The only other option would have been a complete fire sale, and restock in year 2. Looking back, that may have been the best option.

That said, here we are, no excuses to not get to 500 or better. 

Wyche see this is where you and I disagree.   

I believe when you're hired as a head coach that you "should" be able to adopt your coaching philosophies to meet the current athletes on the team.  This is what IMO makes a good coach.   Why come in an say well i'm going to hire a zone schemed DC when all my personnel are there for man to man?   Just makes no sense to me.  I'm sure the scheme being taught by Turner was totally different than what's taught by Pollack.  So should we wait 3-4 years for OL to catch on to Turners way of coaching? 

I'll just give an example of adapting.  Urban Meyers first coaching stop at Bowling Green.  Came into a program that in 2000 had a 2-9 record.  2001 Meyers team goes 8-3.   He adapted to using the pieces he had around him to fit schemes.  

I have never seen any of Taylors coaches do that.  

Where i do agree with you is if Taylor isn't at least 9-8 this year he should be riding that white pony out of town with his buddy Lou. 

[TJ528]

(03-25-2021, 09:37 AM)Wyche Wrote: Pollack left on his own accord, from what I recall, both the FO and Zac wanted him to stay.

..... and Mixon is good when healthy. He ran behind a bad line the two years prior and had pretty good numbers, all things considered.

Wyche, money talks.  If the organization and Zac wanted him to stay so badly then they should've shown how appreciative they were of him.  

I'm sure if this team is anything like it has been they did it the cheap way. 

[Truck_1_0_1_]

(03-25-2021, 09:47 AM)TJ528 Wrote: Wyche, money talks.  If the organization and Zac wanted him to stay so badly then they should've shown how appreciative they were of him.  

I'm sure if this team is anything like it has been they did it the cheap way. 

Pollack LEFT.

*He* WANTED to leave. This has been proven and shown consistently; I sincerely think that we wanted to keep him, he didn't want to deal with a rookie coach, saw that the grass wasn't greener and jumped back at us, since we still have many players that were around still, when he was with us.

Sure money talks, but I don't think any team would break the bank for an Oline coach, over players and other coaches.

[TJ528]

(03-25-2021, 10:26 AM)Truck_1_0_1_ Wrote: Pollack LEFT.

*He* WANTED to leave. This has been proven and shown consistently; I sincerely think that we wanted to keep him, he didn't want to deal with a rookie coach, saw that the grass wasn't greener and jumped back at us, since we still have many players that were around still, when he was with us.

Sure money talks, but I don't think any team would break the bank for an Oline coach, over players and other coaches.

We'll i mean I probably would've broken the bank for Pollack over bringing in Turner who in turn helped develop a line good enough to destroy one of our starting QB's knees.  

Plus for the last 2 years our OL has blocked for a running game that's ranked 27th in 2020 and 24th in 2019.  

I really hope they arent paying Taylor that much either because that ROI has failed miserably up to this point...6-25-1.  Shockingly worse than Dave Shula, and I honestly thought he was the worst coach ever in NFL history...haha

[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.

[Sled21]

(03-25-2021, 10:37 AM)TJ528 Wrote: We'll i mean I probably would've broken the bank for Pollack over bringing in Turner who in turn helped develop a line good enough to destroy one of our starting QB's knees.  

Plus for the last 2 years our OL has blocked for a running game that's ranked 27th in 2020 and 24th in 2019.  

I really hope they arent paying Taylor that much either because that ROI has failed miserably up to this point...6-25-1.  Shockingly worse than Dave Shula, and I honestly thought he was the worst coach ever in NFL history...haha

You're just not getting it, Pollock wanted to go to a different city. They cannot make the man stay.

[*Nate (formerly eliminate08)*]

(03-25-2021, 12:45 AM)Joelist Wrote: Hi!

Here are in my opinion reasons for guarded optimism (in no particular order):

a) Turner is gone. He was not only a cancer but a terrible coach - under his tutelage linemen actually regressed. This was the first sign of intelligent life in the front office this offseason.

b) Pollack is in. We have a good line coach note with a good track record. And lest we forget we saw improved play the one season he was here, and he was respected (not to mention that under his tutelage Price was actually shaping up nicely prior to the second injury). With Pollack I don't feel like OL draft picks will be wasted the way I did with Turner.

c) So far Free Agency has actually made sense and felt like there is a plan of getting the coaches players who are strong in the scheme the coaches want to run. For example, we have basically restocked the secondary with players who actually are sound in zone coverage as opposed to our past idea of taking players best suited for man and putting them in zone. Likewise on the DL we appear to be concentrating on players who actually both generate pass rush AND finish the play.

On OL I think they handled the nature of the FA class as best as was realistically possible. The Guard pool was crazy expensive at the top and not deep so what they are doing again makes sense. Also Reiff is no contest a pretty significant upgrade at RT and fits right into the scheme Pollack favors.

Are things perfect? No. Remember I said GUARDED optimism. We still need reinforcements on the interior OL and the WR room after Tee and Tyler badly needs more playmakers. So we need to see the rest of Free Agency and the draft to tell the story of the offseason. But so far not bad.

Nice thread Joelist. Agree with all of you points, speaking of coaches I also like the hire of Hobby the DL coach, he has a good
resume and I think Eason did a poor job year coaching our guys up even if we were hit bad with injury. 

We have grabbed players that free up the Draft for the most part. I wasn't in to taking a CB early this year. Nice they addressed
it in FA and we needed to grab pass rushers cause in my opinion after the 3rd round Edge rushers really dry out. Getting Trey 
Hendrickson, Ogunjobi and hopefully Kerrigan would be my ideal scenario (even though I wanted Rankins).

Reiff as you said, fits the system and makes it so we don't HAVE to take an OT in the first. It gives us lots of options. Bringing 
back Spain helps and with an entire Offseason he could beat out anyone we Draft to play Guard besides maybe Vera Tucker.

[TJ528]

(03-25-2021, 11:36 AM)Sled21 Wrote: You're just not getting it, Pollock wanted to go to a different city. They cannot make the man stay.

Sled, you make a good point.  However, if he wanted to go to a different city then I'm kind of surprised he wanted to come back to Cincy.  

I do agree with you though that you can't make a man stay.  I mean they could've hired a competent OL coach to replace Pollack when Taylor came in but we can see how good of a DC Lou is and they've already replaced the DL coach, and WR coach.  

[*ochocincos*]

(03-25-2021, 12:45 AM)Joelist Wrote: Hi!

Here are in my opinion reasons for guarded optimism (in no particular order):

a) Turner is gone. He was not only a cancer but a terrible coach - under his tutelage linemen actually regressed. This was the first sign of intelligent life in the front office this offseason.

b) Pollack is in. We have a good line coach note with a good track record. And lest we forget we saw improved play the one season he was here, and he was respected (not to mention that under his tutelage Price was actually shaping up nicely prior to the second injury). With Pollack I don't feel like OL draft picks will be wasted the way I did with Turner.

c) So far Free Agency has actually made sense and felt like there is a plan of getting the coaches players who are strong in the scheme the coaches want to run. For example, we have basically restocked the secondary with players who actually are sound in zone coverage as opposed to our past idea of taking players best suited for man and putting them in zone. Likewise on the DL we appear to be concentrating on players who actually both generate pass rush AND finish the play.

On OL I think they handled the nature of the FA class as best as was realistically possible. The Guard pool was crazy expensive at the top and not deep so what they are doing again makes sense. Also Reiff is no contest a pretty significant upgrade at RT and fits right into the scheme Pollack favors.

Are things perfect? No. Remember I said GUARDED optimism. We still need reinforcements on the interior OL and the WR room after Tee and Tyler badly needs more playmakers. So we need to see the rest of Free Agency and the draft to tell the story of the offseason. But so far not bad.

Yes, as of right now, the biggest needs are pass catcher and IOL. Re-signing Spain helped IOL some.
DL also hasn't really improved the pass rush much compared to last year.
If things stay the same, my focuses in the draft are pass catcher, OL, and DL.

[*Wyche'sWarrior*]

(03-25-2021, 09:45 AM)TJ528 Wrote: Wyche see this is where you and I disagree.   

I believe when you're hired as a head coach that you "should" be able to adopt your coaching philosophies to meet the current athletes on the team.  This is what IMO makes a good coach.   Why come in an say well i'm going to hire a zone schemed DC when all my personnel are there for man to man?   Just makes no sense to me.  I'm sure the scheme being taught by Turner was totally different than what's taught by Pollack.  So should we wait 3-4 years for OL to catch on to Turners way of coaching? 

I'll just give an example of adapting.  Urban Meyers first coaching stop at Bowling Green.  Came into a program that in 2000 had a 2-9 record.  2001 Meyers team goes 8-3.   He adapted to using the pieces he had around him to fit schemes.  

I have never seen any of Taylors coaches do that.  

Where i do agree with you is if Taylor isn't at least 9-8 this year he should be riding that white pony out of town with his buddy Lou. 

I don't disagree with what you're saying at all my friend, believe that. I don't think these guys have been flexible at all. 

That said, it looked to me like they have been approaching this with a long term outlook. Change needed to happen....and it was probably 5 years late if we're being honest. These guys came in after the Super Bowl, and the FO was incredibly inactive in FA that first season. It had the look of a roster evaluation in 2019. Then they started cleaning house in 2020, and again this season. I can't remember this much roster turnover for the Bengals in, well, ever. Now, you've completely revamped the defense (minus a couple players), and are working on the offense. If you can't get to 8-8 this season, then see ya Zac.

[*Wyche'sWarrior*]

(03-25-2021, 10:26 AM)Truck_1_0_1_ Wrote: Pollack LEFT.

*He* WANTED to leave. This has been proven and shown consistently; I sincerely think that we wanted to keep him, he didn't want to deal with a rookie coach, saw that the grass wasn't greener and jumped back at us, since we still have many players that were around still, when he was with us.

Sure money talks, but I don't think any team would break the bank for an Oline coach, over players and other coaches.

....I think he got paid more at NYJ too.

[TJ528]

(03-25-2021, 02:26 PM)Wyche Wrote: I don't disagree with what you're saying at all my friend, believe that. I don't think these guys have been flexible at all. 

That said, it looked to me like they have been approaching this with a long term outlook. Change needed to happen....and it was probably 5 years late if we're being honest. These guys came in after the Super Bowl, and the FO was incredibly inactive in FA that first season. It had the look of a roster evaluation in 2019. Then they started cleaning house in 2020, and again this season. I can't remember this much roster turnover for the Bengals in, well, ever. Now, you've completely revamped the defense (minus a couple players), and are working on the offense. If you can't get to 8-8 this season, then see ya Zac.

Wyche, my only issue is why be willing to do this for Taylor but I know the organization never spent this kind of money in free agency during Marvin's reign.   I guess Katie and organization have a lot more confidence in Taylor than I do.  

Do you agree losing season this year and Taylor needs to be directed out of town and a competent HC hired?  

[*Wyche'sWarrior*]

(03-25-2021, 12:43 PM)TJ528 Wrote: Sled, you make a good point.  However, if he wanted to go to a different city then I'm kind of surprised he wanted to come back to Cincy.  

I do agree with you though that you can't make a man stay.  I mean they could've hired a competent OL coach to replace Pollack when Taylor came in but we can see how good of a DC Lou is and they've already replaced the DL coach, and WR coach.  

Yep, there was a lot of discussion about Pollack leaving on here, but you're new here, so you probably didn't read all of that. As to why he left, it's all been speculation to the best of my memory. It was Frank's decision to leave though, not Zac's, or the FO's.

[*Wyche'sWarrior*]

(03-25-2021, 11:01 AM)Crazyjdawg Wrote: 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.

Excellent synopsis....rep