Differences between this offseason and last

[Delhomme2Muhammad]

With a full season now passed. I think a huge difference will be not having to deal with a huge emotional letdown after the SB loss. 

Despite all the bluster. In hindsight, it definitely affected us last season. 

We can now go into next season with a quiet confidence. Knowing we're better than a 6-10 team. But without the target of being a grandstanding 17-2 team. 

We can just worry about playing football. Instead of trying to back up a great 15 season, or hoping to make up for the SB loss. 

It will be to our benefit. 

[Leeroy Jenkins PhD]

Due to tagging Norman, we were completely up against the cap.  Once we rescinded the tag, we couldn't add any free agents or we would have lost our 3rd round compensation pick.  It was really a lose lose at that point. 

This off-season, we pushed all our chips into the center and called all-in. 

[CarolinaSamurai]

3 hours ago, cam1uvrxoxo said:

Last offseason, to me, seemed really good. We went into the draft with no glaring weeknesses, until we cut Norman.  I would say that our roster had no true area of need at that time (remember that Oher wasn't hurt yet and we still had Norman) Obviously, last season turned out to be crap.

 

What can convince me that this season will be different? We're in a similar situation as a year ago, no glaring weakness going into the draft and hopefully taking BPA before going on another Super Bowl push.  What's different that will make this season a success??

So one of the reasons teams usually drop in talent after an amazing season is players going to get paid. We didn't have that issue and gettleman thought it was a good sign. 

Here is the problem though, you go 15-1 with a almost perfect season, then blow through the playoffs literally making a fool out of Arizona. Though we lost the SB it wasn't as one sided as many make it seem. We had a real chance to win barring the mistakes, which means it wasn't as much bad play except a couple guys. Those same guys did so good throughout the season though. 

Now ask yourself were those players being bad in one or two games indicative of a problem or would 17 games of greatness represent who they really are. Also ask yourself were the mistakes that cost us the biggest game the norm in our team. The answer is no in both cases or so many thought. 

This is the mindset we went into free agency. Our guys looked like Rose colored All-Pro greats. A truly one of a kind powerhouse. Sadly this mindset and season skewed the FOs vision of our real needs. We basically pulled the wool over our own eyes. 

Hopefully the FO has learned from that mistake and start to be more critical of the actual ability of our players. I have a feeling gettleman won't make the same mistakes again. 

[cbully]

2 hours ago, KSpan said:

And what exactly was that?

?

"So what he's saying is, the audience is a bunch of hoes"..... "Howboutdat"

 

[pantherj]

Last offseason was a disaster. We clearly got worse to anyone looking at the situation at the time. This offseason has been great because we're clearly a better team than at the start of the offseason. Now what will happen record wise is another matter, but we're better on paper. We're a few draft picks away from having a solid team with very few holes. I would think we'd do better than 8-8 this season and be in the playoff hunt.