Zimmer defends Diggs

[Pondering Her Percy]

Diggs was the heart of the offense and probably the best player on the team. I wish he was even more vocal when he was here.

Eh I wouldnt go that far. Cook is who makes this offense go. And I would say Thielen was next in line with Diggs being 3rd. We are 5 or 6 and 1 when Diggs doesnt play. If he was the heart and soul of the team, our record without him would've been much worse than that. And as for the best player on the team, no. Cook is hands down the best offensive player on this team and I would say Thielen again comes next. Thielen always tended to overshadow Diggs and when Cook is healthy our offense is a whole different monster.

[84BreaksAnkles]

Let's be clear. Diggs was a unique talent, and served an irreplaceable role for us. He was a blend between Percy and Amari Cooper. No one has the combination of quick burst footwork, sure & strong hands, competitiveness & grit, toughness, and athleticism. Much of our offense will look quite different without him. In many ways, he opened up the game for Adam & our other pieces on offense. We often overlook how much of a blocking talent he was, and how willing he was to block. For a guy his size, and to be perceived as a totally selfish diva, no one had the willingness to block as tenaciously as he did.

Unfortunately it is what it is. He wasn't happy with some aspects of the organization, made his feelings known. We jumped on this early and shipped him out for a nice haul. Win-Win. No one any worse for the wear.

Its obsurd to hope that our WR room will be as productive as we have become accustomed to recently. Its unfair to JJ, and the rest of the gang to put any sort of pressure to fill the big shoes left by Diggs.

If our coaching staff can get creative and transform our route-tree concepts and all the trickle-down that that entails, we may be able to unlock the skillsets of the guys we have now, since they are different than Diggs. Right now JJ has all the potential in the world to be a Michael Thomas, but this will undoubtedly take some time. Who knows, we may potentially not have "the guy" in the room right now to pair with Adam, and get us back into the upper echelon of WR duos. But with our O-line in the kind of shape its currently in (is Bradbury good, is Elflein going to play any snaps, who is our left guard, is Riley Reiff going to get exposed, is Ezra strong enough and gritty enough to see the field this year in an effective manner), and the potential down-grading of our WR room, we certainly can't expect to out-do what we've seen the past few years, in good faith.

Our defense has the capability to be a top-10/top-5 unit, but can we elevate to the level of top-2-defense our veteran-hardened units of the past few years have been? Likely not, since there has been massive changes at every level (Stewart, Gray, Everson, Xavier, Trae, Mac, Linval). Now I still like our defense under Zimmer, and with some shiny new toys, we may very well end up being better than those previous units, but this also will take some time.

Add a likely defensive-regression to the mix, and without Diggs, the outlook for this football team certainly on paper doesn't seem like Championship-contender status in 2020. But I think the moves that our front office has made, as well as with Zim and Kube behind the helm, I like our outlook for the next 3-4 year window. It will all depend on how these young guys develop. The Irv's of the world, the Gladneys and Dantzlers of the world, the Jeffersons of the world, the Lynches of the world, the Dyes, Clevelands, O'Niells, and Bradburys of the world. If we get 3 pro-bowlers, 1 all-pro, and 6 solid starters out of that group - It would be a travesty if we couldn't win one. But if that group turns out to be 1 pro-bowler, 1-all pro, 2 starters, and 6 guys who never crack the lineup, we will be talking about blowing everything up and finding a new direction for this organization. Which way will the wind blow?