Trade deadline

[ChoppedWood]

I am in the camp that we are *this* close and a viable name in the 5-8 that have any type of chance of playing for the title this year. I LOVE what Ballard has done with the talent- we are fast, athletic as hell, and as noted, we have a LOT of leaders (some stat from earlier this year shed light on how many college team captains he has brought into the fray= SMART management). That said, I think we face the reality of falling out of that small group rather easily THIS year just because we are so young and not really battle tested- think there's the possibility of some guys wilting a little bit if things turn south for 2-3 games straight.

I think our DL depth is most problematic. So much so that when Autry was down on the ground flipping around- I thought the season was shot. The same would be said for me on the OL end of things- from what I saw in the PS, there is NO ONE on the bench that I think could come close to filling in for ANY of our starters and that bar is not super high in terms of Glowinski so to me that says a lot about the thin state of things there.

Obviously DE is a ?- what are we going to get opposite of Houston (I am really cool with his production, he is playing the position really well both R and P IMO). Bonagu has started to show something and looks to be progressing, Sheard is clearly a SOLID guy- the question is when and WHAT are we gonna get out of Lewis? My hunch is that Ballard looks at those three and feels they give us enough to not warrant giving away picks for a guy like Miller (a hero's ransom) or Beasley (more of a gamble that might not cost as much but also may pay NO dividends) to try to make a "deep run" at it this year. So far, no reason not to trust the guys decisions.