quick thoughts on this epic battle between afc super bowl contenders

[Coltsalr]

Scattered thoughts...the first three games have highlighted our deficiencies at our two biggest weaknesses, OL and LB:

1) Mewhort and Castonzo taking a step back is quite concerning, not only for obvious reasons, but also for what it means in terms of needing to (eventually) rebuild the OL. Ballard not doing anything to rebuild the OL this past offseason was an understandable move (I guess), but honestly, who do you trust besides Ryan Kelly? (And let's see Ryan Kelly come back from injury first, but I'll be optimistic and assume he returns to form).

I'm assuming they keep Castonzo. He's under contract through the next two years and while he's probably not worth the $11M cap hit he'll cost the next two years, you could do worse.

Still, can you reasonably expect them to scrap the other three OL positions in one offseason and replace them with actual suitable replacements? Has anyone shown enough to keep their spot for next year (that isn't under a cost prohibitive contract)?

I say all that of that to say, the OL is still such an unfinished project that we'll likely still be seeing some holdovers from this year to next on our OL. Maybe best case scenario we get two new good starters, but then who else are we keeping? IMO, Ballard definitely should've brought in at least one established starter (maybe Zeitler) to play OL that could stick around for a few years.

2) All of that also applies to our LB's. I like John Simon as much as anyone, but he's only one guy, and because of our defensive alignment, we need three other quality LB's (at least).

Sheard has been a bit of a disappointment thus far, so I'd imagine he'll likely be someone that while we're not dying to cut him, I'm not sure Ballard is going to be inclined to keep his $7.5M cap hit next year.

Our ILB's are still a complete and total mess.

So the same thing applies here. Are we REALLY expecting three new LB starters to come in this next offseason?


SIX new starters being needed (at least) is disconcerting. Yes, we basically knew that going in, but I think we were all hoping that someone would step up and prove themselves definitively worthy of being a starter, which certainly hasn't happened. That's not even accounting for guys that will likely depart, such as Moncrief, Vontae Davis, and Frank Gore that will need to be replaced.