Shaun Hill is better than Clemens. Our WR corp has gotten better. Our defense should be better scheme wise, progression wise, and even deeper than last season.
I might be wearing the rose colored glasses...but I think there are legitimate reasons to believe this team has gotten better.
Hill should be better than Clemens. Hopefully at age 34 and having not started meaningful games in 3 years won't affect him, but that's something we're not going to know until further in the season.
We hope the WRs continue their success into the season but we've seen flashes from guys in the preseason for years now and it hasn't translated. We're hanging our hopes on Kenny Britt who hasn't contributed much in the regular season for awhile now, and Brian Quick who has shown glimpses, albeit not nearly as consistently as he did in the preseason, but never was able to put it together.
We have OL questions with Jake Long likely needing an adjustment period to start the season and injury questions with him, Rodger Saffold, and Scott Wells, with questionable depth once we get past Greg Robinson.
I think Gregg Williams will get the most out of this defense but I still question our secondary.
Will James Laurinaitis be ready to play up to the level he normally plays at for the first few weeks after missing the entire preseason?
The talent level on this team has definitely gotten better. But unfortunately we're not the only team that can say that.
The skill level of this team as compared to the pre-Fisher days is night and day, but my biggest concern is that this young team is going to need a few weeks before they really get things going, but with the way our schedule lines up, we really need to come out firing during the first 3 weeks. A slow start could bury us.
The homer in me is still hoping for a 9 or 10 win season. But the realist in me wouldn't be shocked to see another 7 or 8 win season given our question marks.
All I can say is it's about damn time the homer in me gets rewarded because I'm tired of the realist in me being right!