trents wrote:All the analysts agree that things don't look real good next year for the Hawks staging a comeback to become a dominant team, possibly contending for a Superbowl appearance.
There are injuries to key players, draft picks and free agency/trade acquisitions that haven't panned out the last three years, aging stars combined with salary cap limitations that all seem to point in the direction of a rebuilding phase rather than a return to glory.
I gotta agree with you, trents. We've been living on borrowed time for the past 3 years. Our defense and quarterback has kept us in most games, but now that defense could look a lot different next season: Sherman, Chancellor, Avril, Bennett, even Earl Thomas might not be back. Our window may have closed, at least for a couple of years. But we do have Russell, and he probably has another year or two before his age forces him to adjust away from his Houdini acts that we've been so reliant on to sustain our offense over the past few seasons.
The first couple of years of Pete's regime, we hit it big in the draft. My theory is that Pete was close enough to the college game that he knew a lot of players and had contacts with numerous other coaches around the country, particularily on the west coast, that he had an insight that his NFL counterparts didn't share. He knew Richard Sherman (Stanford), Brandon Browner (Oregon State), and Bobby Wagner (Utah State), knew what Marshawn Lynch (Cal) could do because of his close proximity to where they played. Now that he gets further and further away from the college game, that advantage has diminished.
We'll see how Pete responds. With the purging of the coaching staff, he's definetly recognized that he has to make some changes if we are to remain competitive and get back to the type of football we were used to seeing.