The hope would be Jeff Okudah, right? Or Bobbyquinn’s parting gift to us was a 3rd overall pick bust at a weird position, as The Next Great QB was drafted a couple of picks later.
But I think it will be Tracy Walker. He had shown earlier he had some ability. But like basically everyone on the defense last year, he regressed. That will happen when your defensive guru coach schemes very flawed defenses, and anyone with a brain and ability who questions it is shown the door.
You would think our LBs would improve for the same reason, just being out of a weird, exploitable, limiting scheme. But I think talent is more of a problem there.
Anyone that comes back in the Secondary. It’s impossible that our CB’s were all the worst in the NFL, but the stats say that Trufant and Coleman were like 1,2. Okudah likely walked into THE worst situation for a secondary player in the entire NFL. Here, cover Davonta Adams by yourself and our pass rush will only force you to cover him for the first 10 seconds. Go.
Aaron Glenn is going to be a massive help for young players in the secondary like Okudah, AO, and Walker. He did a terrific job developing the Saints DB’s.
Tracy Walker is the biggest winner this offseason. I’m looking most forward to him. He’s our best safety and one of the best players on defense. Our rocket scientist head coach decided to play head games and had him as the #3 safely most of the year. Jarrad Davis (if he comes back) is a close 2nd. How do you not have him on the field?! I know he was a liability in coverage at times. But he had so many traits that made him a great player. “See ball get ball” or pass rushing. That’s what Jarrad Davis is best at.
Someone I don’t think many people would think of though is Jalen Reeves Maybin. He’s a great special teamer and I believe he has always looked good on the field. I mostly only see him in preseason but he always stood out to me. I think if he would have had more playing time he would have been by far our best coverage linebacker. So Jalen Reeves Maybin is my dark horse candidate to have a bigger role next year. A role he probably should have had this year.
Davis is not a MLB in this league. Unless they start blitzing him and using his speed as a weapon I don’t see much improvement from him. He’s a tick behind when processing and overruns everything.
The Lion I think that has benefited the most from the coaching fires/hires is D’Andre Swift. If he can stay healthy I think he’s in for a massive workload. OC Lynn loves his RB’s and Swift is a special one.
I wanted to go with Goff but I guess he doesn’t qualify as a former Lion that had to put up with QuinnTricia. With an above average run game I think Goff looks good this year and is our starting QB going into 2022.
Walker was the first name that came to mind for me as I started to read your post.
Walker is best suited for Zone coverages. He struggled playing so much man. I think he benefits from being asked to play cover 3 more. Which both our defensive minds like to run.
I believe we will see Flowers numbers improve as well. He won’t be asked to contain as much and I think we move him around a little more.
If J. Davis is back then I think he will also improve.
But the person who most benefits from us moving on from MP is the fans … our sanity and stress levels will be greatly improved.