Username said:
Good stuff.
I'm not entirely sold on McDonald. I really hope he can prove me wrong. The thing that worries me the most is the inexperience we have on the back end. We may have the talent, I just hope we don't have too many growing pains back there. We have a pretty young secondary overall. Well, I guess we have a really young team too overall lol. :tooth:
I'm pretty much in total agreement.
I also agree with Lesson in that our safeties were bad last year, especially Dahl. I thought Mikell played well, but I honestly believe that Stewart can do at least nearly as good of a job if he can stay healthy. The big hole was obviously FS where Dahl might have been the worst in the league. Even if TJ McDonald doesn't come in and play like a rookie of the year and even if he makes rookie mistakes, I think that means he will still play as well as Dahl did (who made plenty of mistakes himself).
By maturation our CBs should be better which can make up for some of those deficiencies and having a LB like Ogletree who can cover may also make up for it. The DL should be better next year with Brockers and Quinn having another year of experience and Langford having more experience at DT. Also with OLB Dunbar and Alec rushing the passer it makes our pass rush even better next year (scary to think about considering we tied for the NFL lead in sacks). A good pass rush can make your secondary look pretty good. In other words, even if McDonald doesn't set the world on fire as a rookie, I don't think he'll be as exposed as if they played in Oakland or Jacksonville who had a very poor pass rush.