Quote:
Originally Posted by Buehler445
I'm not throwing stones, I legitimately want to know because I respect your opinion, but where are you at on injuries?
Jamaal Charles, Justin Houston, a myriad of other dudes missing serious time changes the equation significantly. Worst case scenario, Charles goes down, misses 8 games, and the narrative is that Alex didn't have his best weapon. Where does your evaluation of him stand then?
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{shrug}
It depends. Ultimately our thesis is that Smith has enough weapons to win with. If Charles goes down and he's looking at Davis/West + Maclin and Kelce, I'd say he still has an average to slightly above average set of weapons and he should still be decent. Perhaps the team ceiling drops by a game, but I'm not going to give him a pass for anything.
Kelce going down could actually hurt the most, followed by Maclin.
I guess ultimately my answer is that it would take a pretty catastrophic set of injuries for me to just say 'well he didn't have enough to win'. Essentially, the injuries would have to be enough to wipe out my underlying operating assumption: That Smith has the tools around him to succeed. Losing one T or one pass catcher shouldn't be enough to blow that assumption apart.
This line is going to be fine. And there is enough depth among his weapons that he should be able to lose one of the big ones and still be solid. NFL teams deal with injuries and Smith may have to deal with a couple here and there. If he's really completely comfortable in this offense now, that shouldn't be an issue for him and he should continue to perform.