And of course praise MacDonald for his incredible coaching and schemes.
This defense that we have is so good that even if our offense just plays to like half of it’s potential we can still beat good teams. Which increases our odds significantly at being able to win the super bowl.
We have so many players on the defense playing like All-Pros and can realistically get one this season or at least make the Pro Bowl.
Roquan Smith
Kyle Hamilton
Justin Madibuike
Patrick Queen
Geno Stone
We have a lot of former All-Pro players or solid veterans who are adding a presence to the upcoming stars and are also still really good and elevating the team.
Jadeveon Clowney
Kyle Van Noy
Marcus Williams
Marlon Humphrey
Michael Pierce
We have young, up and coming players who are playing at a high level that potentially could be All-Pros later in the future.
Brandon Stephens
Odafe Oweh
And another crucial aspect, having depth to where if the starters go down, you still can have faith in the backups to not make the defense collapse and completely fall apart. As well as the ability to rotate the starters out more and keep them fresh and not tired.
Arthur Maulet
Brent Urban
Travis Jones
Daryl Worley
Ronald Darby
There are other of these players who probably deserve to be mentioned but I can only remember so many of them to keep track of.
And a couple of mystery wildcards that have shown to be be good or still have the potential to be good but are always injured.
David Ojabo
Tyus Bowser
I remember people shitting on EDC that he didn’t give Lamar any help. Many people also said that he invested too much in the defense with draft picks, capital in trading, or money for cap space.
While the WRs and other concerns about our offense were valid this is where all that investment for the defense pays off and helps Lamar.
Our defense is not only historically elite performing near our 2000s defense level but it is solid overall where we have depth and our holes and worst position groups are still way better than most teams in the league.
I think it’s a mistake to give all the credit to EDC. We have a lot of scouts doing an awesome job and we have paid some really great position coaches to develop these guys, and we gave them the time and training they needed to develop. And our DC has created a scheme to maximize their strengths. Most of the guys making big contributions this year weren’t playing at this level last year. Most defensive players you listed that we drafted had minimal or even bad rookie years. The consistency and quality of development of players is really the unsung hero on the defensive side of the ball this year.