Im going to give the front office the benefit of the doubt and say that they know what they are doing.
Consider this as a possibility, Pioli and Co. are planning for the future. In other words they were not expecting to fix all the holes and win the Superbowl this year through the Draft and Free Agency.
Maybe they went into this offseason with a list of needs. They looked at the players in the draft, and they looked at Free Agency, and they ALSO looked at next years FA and Draft.
After all of their research, they came to the conclusion that there is not anyone good enough to fill those positions at a HIGH LEVEL this offseason. In other words this year's draft and FA class for ILB, NT, and OLB were somewhat mediocre, compared to what next year's draft and FA class is expected to be (in their eyes).
I dont know if that is necessarily true because I do not follow the NCAA and I dont know off the top of my head what players will be available in FA next year. I have heard though that next year's NT class is expected to be very deep and will include a lot of NT that actually played NT in a 3-4. Unlike this year where there are a lot of players who are big enough to be NT but really played DT in a 4-3. I havent heard anything about OLB and ILB, but maybe that is the case as well.
So, maybe, Pioli and Co decided we will pick up some speed at some key positions (FS, CB on D and WR, TE on O).
This year our special teams will be much improved. Last year we had the 25th ranked Kick Return (based on avg. yards per return) (21.5 ypr) and the 27th ranked Punt Return (6.5 ypr). Most people dont think Special Teams means a whole lot unless you have a Devin Hester or Dante Hall, but I disagree.
Special teams has a huge effect on our starting field position. Both from punts and kickoffs. If we improve our average return yards, we improve our starting field position. That means we do not have to drive down nearly as far to get into field goal range or to score a touchdown. (here is the link to an article that discusses special teams and starting field position in painful statistical detail: Blogger: Page not found.
Anyways, I do not think that this draft was an A+ in terms of meeting all of our needs and making us superbowl contenders right away. But I do think it is a definite step in the right direction.
Lets give Pioli the benefit of the doubt, maybe they have a plan that lasts more than 1 year. Sorry for the extremely long post.
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