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Originally Posted by jaa1025
(Post 13624011)
1) Peters wasn't their best player on defense. He played like crap at times last year. Even at top form, he's behind Houston, Berry and potentially Jones. One could argue that some of the defensive issues was because Peters refused to tackle citing a career choice, IE, he didnt want to get hurt before a potential big contract.
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You can't claim the defense is going to be better because it's returning players who also played on the defense over the last 3 years, when it's been terrible. Those are not upgrades. That's the #28 (or whatever) defense just treading water.
They lost their MVP in Marcus Peters, one of the NFL's best corners.
Houston hasn't been an elite player for 3-4 years now even when he gets on the field.
Berry, while an impact player when healthy, will be turning turn 30 this season, and he was not able to will bad defenses into the middle third in the previous two years he was able to play. He's a nice player to have but his return isn't going to turn the defense around. That only gets us back to the (also awful) 2016 defense.
Claiming that the defense will be better because it will return some of its better players, now a few more years older, from years past when the unit was embarrassingly bad is a circular argument.
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2) The Chiefs overhauled their defense. Berry will be back. OLB, opposite of Houston will be better, whether that comes from a healed Dee Ford, Speaks or Kpassagnon.
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This argument rests on untested players and never-weres panning out, which the odds are always against in the NFL.
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3) Ragland started looking pretty damn good at ILB last year. The Chiefs also got Anthony Hitchens, who will be a large upgrade to Derrick Johnson who looked like he was running in quick sand last year.
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Ragland was on the defense last year when it was terrible.
Hitchens got over $20 million fully guaranteed on a speculative deal. While it will help if it can reduce Sorensen's snaps or those going to the other empty jerseys that played in dime packages last year, he was still a veteran player who wasn't good enough to hold off emerging rookies in Dallas.
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4) As a group, the CB position will be better. Peters is gone, but he was also the only CB on the roster worth a spot. Fuller's potential is Peters but even if he's not as good, Amerson is a large upgrade over what we had. Plus, Veach apparently thinks he's found two hidden gems in his stable of young CB's.
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Fuller's potential is not Peters, and shuffling JAGs in the secondary is not going to take the defense out of the doldrums.
Veach may have found two undiscovered elite players, but the odds are always against any young player panning out.
This whole argument that the defense is massively upgraded and anyone can see it all relies on a string of unlikely things playing out, aging veterans all returning to their elite form of years past, and everyone staying healthy this time, which never happens.
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5) Safety will be a LOT better as well. They will be adding an All Pro back in Berry. They also added Golden, who is under the radar for depth. I'm very high on Watts to take the FS position sometime during the year.
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Nobodies/depth players are not on the field on key downs. Sure, it will be nice to have a warm body this time if Berry gets injured again, but in reality if that happens we're hosed at the position anyway.
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6) Upgraded the NT position with Xavier Williams and Derrick Nnadi, who has elite run stopping potential.
Now, this defense is not likely top 10 but they could end up top 15-20.
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Hooray, we're aspiring to improve from #28 to #20. Print 'em
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