Quote:
Originally Posted by DJ's left nut
How confident are you that Karlaftis is an immediate 10+ sack guy and Uzi 6-8.
Because without those 15 sacks and more critically, without the pressures and the double-teams, this DL is in trouble.
Y'all really don't remember how many games were nip/tuck right until the 4th quarter last year? Again, we don't beat Cincy without him. We don't beat Philly without him.
How's that not 'a game changer' if we don't have him?
This isn't just some swinging dick linebacker. This was probably the 3rd most impactful defensive player in football last season. He was THAT ****ing good.
It's really REALLY weird to me that folks are going to hand-waive that. Because as 'only one piece of the puzzle' but playing at an insanely high level, this defense was still only okay most of the season in 2022. Take him out of that equation and 'only okay' may be a pleasant memory.
Take him out and you're back to trying to outscore teams and hoping they make a mistake or you win a coin toss. That didn't work in '18 and wouldn't have worked even in '19 had the AFC not been a bucket of dicks that year.
We need the D to complement the O and Jones is the most critical component we have to that.
So I'm not gonna pretend like he doesn't matter. He does - in a big way.
But he's evidently lost his mind.
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Yeah, the D would be way different if there is no Jones. I honestly think they'd have to look at using an odd-man front to try to make that work without him. Karlaftis and Omenihu are stout enough to be 34 E, but NT gets dicey if you're relying on Danny Shelton and Nnadi and Coburn.
It wouldn't spell the end of them being a Super Bowl contender, to me. They'd be one. But they'd go from being a favorite to just another team in the mix.
It's hard to believe he and his agent are far enough off the reservation to actually sit out that much of the season or the whole season. So I can't imagine that happening. It basically ended his boy Lev Bell's career (though he did get one good payday out of it, it wasn't what he was offered).