same

Next year more or less of the same?

 

If the same Front Office and coaching staff remains... yes. If not, I see us getting worse before we get better, thanks in large part to not having a lot of draft picks to rebuild the roster. Then again, even if we did, that doesn't mean we'd draft well...

 

I don't know about that.
Realistically, the last two years we've been hamstrung capwise but we've found ways to dedicate to a phase of football and get it to play well despite odds. 08 we dedicated to the run and had little else to work with, and now we run well. 09 we dedicated to the pass defense and we're coming up bigtime with INTs, where we're 5th in the league, and yards, where we're 6th. Despite not having a ton to work with.

It's not 100% ideal obviously. But when we lack the big guns to work with we've still found a way to make something that we need to be good, to be good. If the guys that are here making decisions next year are making decisions, I feel solid they'll find a way to fix the problems and be competitive.

 

It just seems that when we fix one area, it's at the expense of another. We're sticking our fingers into the holes of the dyke only to see another develop. Good years are followed by bad years that are followed by good years. My jealously of teams like the Pats shade my opinion of our F.O. The Pats are in first place in their division and people are bitching. That's because they have been able to put together back to back to back good seasons. I'd kill for that kind of consistency. But I have to admit that our up and down production beats the hell out of the other type of consistency a la Lions, Raiders et al.

 

Our schedule next year will be a lot easier, so we'll be better.

 

Once and for all they need to settle the Peppers situation. It killed any improvement we needed to do

 

Agree

 

Forget about the easier schedule in 2010, because we've had those before and success with easy schedules tend to blind you from actually seeing reality.

Bottomline, if we keep Fox in 2010, we'll continue to be the same.

And PantherPaul, I would be greatly shocked if Peppers isn't just gone next year. Now whether we can get anything for him (sign/trade) remains to be seen. But surely to God they will not franchise him just to keep him one more year.

 

example: johnson inside

 

We're not the only team that uses a guy that normally plays outside as an inside rusher, and Johnson is pretty good at it, that doesn't scream desperation more than a case of effectively using our personnel.