Commentary: My goodness, Twisted! How dare you ask "pulse of the team vs. the league" questions on day 2 of the free agency! :sarcasm_off: Sheesh, some peeps get all curmudgeonly if they don't want to engage in the topic raised by the poster. :141847_bnono: It was nice to see a few of our faithful address the questions objectively and straightforwardly. But I digress...
TwistedHusky":3hpowmuy said:
The question is whether you think that getting weaker means that certain teams passed us, and if so who?
Are we still the strongest team in the league? How do we stack up now vs the teams that got better and are threats?
In answer to your post topic question, yes, we're worse at this moment. Losing highly respected leaders like Red, the swagger and talents of Tate, and the familiarity and camaraderie all our guys had playing together, we've regressed a little. Any new guys will need time to acclimate and our guys time to acclimate to the new guys.
On paper, the only team that
could remotely be argued to have passed us on day 2 would be Denver. However, we dominated them in all three phases of the game in the Super Bowl, and I still think we're better in 2 out of the three phases of the game, so I would disagree with those that would put them ahead of us for the moment.
1) I would still contend that even losing Red, McDonald, and Clem, our defense is still better than their historic offense, which just lost Decker and Beadles. The currently have less weapons and are weaker on the interior O-line, though they will get back their stud LT.
2) Though we've lost Maragos, Tate, and likely Thurmond so far, our special teams is still better than theirs by a wide margin.
3)The only area Denver might now have an edge over us here on day 2 is our offense vs. their defense. Yes, they lost Champ, but adding the big three of Ware, Ward, and Talib, and getting Von Miller back healthy, compared to our losing Tate, Breno and Rice, gives them an edge there...on paper. Ware, Ward, and Talib are exceptional defensive talents. Ward comes with the least concerns of the three.
If Ware can stay healthy, and Talib doesn't run into Welker in practice, or regress to the guy who pulled a gun on his mom, they will have a potentially dynamic defense.
Lastly though, I think we have a distinct 4th area of the game where we have a huge advantage, our head coach. The way Pete prepares our guys to play in championship from day one of practice, and the consistency he demonstrated leading up to and through the Super Bowl, is immensely valuable to our success. Fox made big changes to his guys' routines before the championship game both last year and when he was with Carolina. That is terrible to do to a team, and he didn't learn from his first mistake in this with Carolina, so there's little reason to believe he will change next year is the same Super Bowl scenario plays out.
Bottom line: Hawks still best 'team' in the league, even on day 2...