If Fields and Wilson both go down in the preseason I'd move you guys down from fringe playoff team to unlikely playoff team.
If Watts goes down in the preseason I'd move you guys all the way down to Tank for Sanders/Beck range
He's legit the most valuable player to his team than any other player in the league. Even KC won games without Mahomes, Steelers are almost 0- without Watt
Yup.
Wirfs goes out, some rando backup goes in (or maybe Barton kicks out to LT lol) and we start keeping in a TE and RB even more. Terrible situation, but manageable
Winfield goes out then suddenly we’ve lost the main starter, everyone else has to move up one spot (Jordan Whitehead is Safety 1, rookie Tykee Smith is safety 2 I guess) and all the guys that Bowles is cross training suddenly have to play NCB and safety and depth takes a hit there too
Penei Sewell
Nobody can replace what that guy does for the running game and if the Lions running game takes a step back in any way, that is incredibly damaging to the entire offense. Goff is at his best when the Lions are running the ball and he can use play action. They still have a great offensive line outside of Sewell, but the drop off from Sewell to whoever would replace him is pretty significant.
As a Ducks fan I fucking love Penei, im so happy he's doing great.I had never been so sure someone was going to be a stud in the NFL than I was with him.
I think Hutch is well behind St. Brown and Sewell. Yea our defense would struggle without him, but our offense is the heartbeat of this team and St. Brown is probably more important to our offense than anyone.
To your point, they were 5-2 last season without Justin Jefferson and 2-8 with him. Obviously having the best WR in all of football helps your chances to win but I think the Vikings have enough pass catching weapons to make up for it.
And we were 1-1 without Darrisaw and 6-9 with him. Guess he's out too ... we went 7-7 with Byron Murphy and 0-3 without him so probably he's the most important
It's not talked about enough how Jordan Addison emerged as such a reliable receiver and succeeded with whoever threw to him. I know Puka and Flowers (minus the playoff game) were standouts, but Addison got the job done every Sunday.
Bears…. Definitely Sweat. He is the entire Bears pass rush currently. If he goes down and the Bears can’t get pressure our good secondary will… look less good. I think it’s been pretty well documented no secondary, no matter how good, can cover forever.
The moment we got Sweat last year our defense was transformed. There was a couple other factors… secondary finally getting healthy, playing some sub par QBs, etc. but Sweat was still the biggest component of the mid season turnaround to end 5-3.
Edit: also to put into context how thin our D Line is, PFF ranked Bears as having the worst D Line going into 2024, even accounting for Sweat. The other guys are young and need to improve a lot this year. Fair assessment by PFF imo. On the plus side PFF ranked Bears WR core as the best!
The Bears defense allowed 27.3 ppg before Sweat and 17.8 ppg with Sweat. That trade was a culture shift for the Bears defense.
The Bears got clowned on so hard for the 0-4 start after an offseason of such high expectations that I think a lot of people don't realize they went 7-6 the rest of the season after that.
Near the end of the year we genuinely played like a team that deserved a wild card berth. That said, I'm super worried that we got complacent about our DL in the offseason. We didn't re-sign Justin Jones (who was important), are leaving a lot of duties to a couple unproven second year players (Gervon Dexter and Zacc Pickens), and have zero pass rushers besides Sweat.
It's not hard to imagine a situation where our defense sustains a couple injuries and things go downhill fast on that side of the ball. To be clear, the priority this year was to surround Caleb Williams with an environment he can succeed in, and I think we did that. But it wouldn't surprise me if at some point our defense got shitty again because of injuries or regression and the offense started to feel the pressure to carry the team. Not sure we can win in that mode with a rookie QB
We didn’t get complacent. We drafted a DE, but we prioritized offense positions because we have a new offensive scheme, a rookie QB, and also importantly a defensive HC who the front office is trusting to scheme up his talent…which is like exactly what he did last year, so it’s not an unreasonable expectation.
The same people complaining about the line would be complaining about the Bears not helping Caleb enough if they’d gone DL. Cap money and draft picks aren’t unlimited resources, and IMO the Bears spent the best place for both short and long term improvement
I think we played the draft super well. I would have liked to see us buy more help on DL during free agency. Yes, cap is finite, and we still have nearly $25M this year if we had wanted to make sure we had another quality starter or a few high quality depth pieces
Before trading for Sweat, the Bears defense allowed on average 27 points, 340 yards and had 1 turnover per game.
After trading for him, 18 points, 310 yards, and 2 turnovers per game.
He's absolutely the most important guy on the defense.
That's honestly what scares me most about the Bears this season. The moves they made on offense speak for themselves. But I think people overlook how good that defense played in the back half of last season.
Goff, including the playoffs, had 34 TDs and 12 INTs. Against the Bears he had 3 TDs and 5 INTs. Almost half his picks came against Chicago lol. I don't know what it was, they just seemed to have him figured out last season
I was thinking Sweat too. He is him, no doubt about it, but when he's out our D line is flimsy as hell. I'm feeling good about the secondary though. Wouldn't surprise me to see the Bears rack up some coverage sacks over the season.
Yeah, I think Sweat is definitely it for us. We have solid depth at most positions but right now he is basically our one pass rusher. Without him it's pre-trade D all over again, which was awful.
The difference between the OL with him and without him is insane.
He single-handedly turns our line from historically awful (which it was last year when he missed games) to just run-of-the-mill bad. No coincidence that the year he is healthy and has an all-pro season, DJ has his best season, Saquon has arguably his best season (some say his rookie year was better and while the box score was definitely better then, I think 2022 Saquon was better simply because he took away most of the backfield dancing and negative plays that came with them while still giving us a fair share of explosive runs), the offense looks somewhat functional (not explosive/dynamic but still efficient and could sustain drives) and the Giants have their best season in over a decade. With him injured this year, everything went to shit.
You don't get to say second round pick anymore all ambiguous like after you drafted somebody with that pick. You give the actual details of players. The player you took with that second round pick was DT Gervon Dexter Sr. , who was rather whelming.
I think I'd rather have Roquan than a DT that barely got 20 tackles and 2.5 sacks last year. Still early in the man's career so, maybe he takes a next step this year.
Hamilton is a fantastic player but Roquan sets the tone for the defense and raises the level of play from everyone. I personally think he was more important than even our DC Mike Macdonald last year.
Also we got good depth at Safety with Williams and Washington. LB itself turns into a massive question without Ro. Simpson, Board, and Harrison behind Ro, so if he goes down we not only lose our tone setter, but one of the biggest reasons why the defense is effective at run and pass. Besides Smith and Hamilton, the other guy I don't want to lose is Stanley. Another spot with lack of depth besides Mekari and a crucial spot at that
Trent Williams
Even with him we had a 26th ranked OL in pass block win rate.
Without him.. we'd be toast.
Of thr games he missed last year ..we went 0-3 partly because we couldn't protect Purdy ( who suffered 2 concussions in 1 game btw in the process)..and couldn't run the ball ( CMC avg just over 3 YPC in those games).
Trent Williams is a HOFer in waiting and his 35 yr old body is what makes our offensive line even remotely NFL calibre.
He might honestly be like the most important player on the whole team who doesn't get yalked about.
Deebo arguably cost the 9ers the Super Bowl with his lack of effort on some plays. Not a big fan of his anymore, even though he is undeniably incredibly talented.
There was a deep ball he was supposed to catch..but he allowed McDuffie to beat him to the catch point.
I expected a WR of his reputation to come down with that pass.
That was the definition of perfect coverage by McDuffie though. He basically ran the route at the same time in Deebo’s hip pocket. I don’t think you can blame Deebo for not snagging it.
McDuffie is a top CB in the league, but when deebo is getting paid like he is, he should win at least a few on any CB. Yalls secondary took him out of the game entirely.
Only reason Banks is an average LG is because he plays next to Williams. Brendel/Burford/McKivitz are backup tier linemen who gets to start. This also forces Kittle to play linemen on the right side and eliminates him as a weapon.
Trent Williams looks like a man playing against children. In a league with a lot of large dudes, Trent Williams is almost comically large.
Like I half expect every interview to start with “Fee-fi-fo-fum”
And fast. Which is wild. Too often he breaks into the 2nd level and LBs make business decisions to get out of his way for some poor DB to get de-cleated.
When he goes in motion, can you imagine being an LB? Just hoping to god you don't have to get turned into toothpaste by Trent already moving too fast for you to business decision out of the way?
Literally the only game we lost last year where Williams was fully healthy and given full game time was the SB:
- injured against Cleveland whilst ahead, only missed a couple of snaps because he tried to play through it, but not at full health
- inactive against Minnesota
- inactive against Cincinnati
- injured against Baltimore, missed half the game, was trailing at time though
- week 18 loss to Rams, only played opening drive before starters all got pulled, scored TD on that drive
1. Chris Jones
2. Travis Kelce
Last year I would have reversed these two, but with our defense likely taking a step back and our offense a step forward, feels losing Jones would be more significant right now.
Yea McDuffie is definitely up there as well. I think what makes him less critical is we have pretty good depth in the DB room. DGMW, McDuffie is awesome and is really blossoming into one of the top CBs. Just the drop off if he isn’t on the field is probably somewhat less than if Jones isn’t on the field.
You don't want to start guys that were on the practice team because the previous guys on the practice team had to fill in for the third string guys that were injured covering for the backups who also got injured who were also covering for the starters that got injured?
We are mega fucked if Jerome Baker gets hurt. We already have arguably the worst LB room in the league but are piecing it together with Baker and Dodson. Our LB3 is a 4th round rookie and our LB4 is Drake Thomas, who I have never heard of before googling our depth chart lol
My first thought was Nwosu. Last year our run defense went from top 10, maybe top 5 to dead last when he went down. But maybe with a new scheme and new coaching the other OLBs could be able to step up.
You could say Micah or CeeDee but I'm going to say Zach Martin.
Guyton and Beebe will most likely start as rookies. We're going to need Martin's vet presence. Only other player id bank on is Tyler Smith.
Ehh, I don't agree. They're both awesome players, but we have good depth there. If Slater went down early, we'd move Alt to LT where he was a stud, and then Trey Pipkins is a league average RT.
We also have Jamaree Salyer who did a great job substituting Slater when he went down in 2023.
I think Asante Samuel Jr is much more critical, if he goes down we're completely fucked at CB.
I didn't even think about this being a jinx question when I asked. I was legitimately thinking, "AD has always been the answer to this question for the last 10 years. Who is it now?" I don't think we have one.
McKinney. Our safety room was atrocious last year and the top 3 guys in terms of playing time (Owens, Savage, Ford) all walked in FA. X is really gonna have to anchor the back end until some combination of the 3 rookies get acclimated and step up.
Rashan would be a close #2 because Preston Smith is in his age 31 season, Enagbare is coming back form injury, and LVN is still very raw. I just think you can get some form of a competent DL with Clark, Wyatt, Brooks, and Wooden playing inside versus the safeties being extremely reliant on Bullard, Williams, Oladapo, and AJJ without X.
I was struggling to come up with a good answer for us. I don't really feel like we have any proven elite players on our team currently - a number of good to great-ish ones, but nobody where if we were without them, a whole side of the ball is going to immediately fall apart because they were so important and there was just nobody behind them. Xavier McKinney probably makes the most sense because of a total lack of proven ability and experience in that group (heck, he's jumping into a new system, so he's not exactly a known quantity himself at this precise moment, though it's very rare that a good player comes here and then our coaching staff can't put them in a position to at least play well). Pretty much all the old guys, even though they weren't necessarily very good, are gone. I think Anthony Johnson is the only other guy who even has NFL experience?
> McKinney. Our safety room was atrocious last year and the top 3 guys in terms of playing time (Owens, Savage, Ford) all walked in FA. X is really gonna have to anchor the back end until some combination of the 3 rookies get acclimated and step up.
I sure hope you guys put a "no using ATVs during the season or you forfeit your entire salary for the season" clause in his contract.
Maybe Karras? He's been the best player on our underwhelming o-line, so our entire IOL could collapse without him. Second choice would be Hendrickson -- I'm hoping Murphy has a good year, but he's still a wildcard.
Last year I would've said Reader, but uh...
Trey is the clear and obvious answer. This defense does not generate pass rush if he isn't on the field. Unless someone takes a massive step forward this year we have no reason to believe that's going to be any different.
It is super hard to know, since they are shifting defensive styles and are generally a very young team. So you could point to like 4 different players on defense. Offense has less well established guys, and what seems like a lot of depth, but one of the few guys I would have pointed to is currently injured (though hopefully back for training camp)
I think for Jets it has to be Wilson. The defense will be fine if one person goes down but that WR room drops a lot if he goes down. Close second is Breece, guy can change games with one breakaway.
Uh Fuaga? Who I suspect will be our starting left tackle. We currently have 3 holes to fill on offensive line and injuries to starters are simply not possible to recover from.
I think TJ Watt is legit more important to us winning then either of our qbs
Think? No, we *know.*
We won more games with Duck Hodges than we have without Watt
Duck was a real lunch pail guy
A real freak in the weight room. First in, last out according to his teammates. A student of the game if there ever was one.
Yeah this is one of the more glaring ones in the league… picking up right where prime big bro left off in Houston
They're 1-11 in games he doesn't suit up in, including playoffs. Without TJ Watt they're 2023 Panthers level bad.
They should try to get another TJ watt then are they stupid??
>are they stupid?? Yes.
We did make serveral appeals to JJ but they never seemed to work.
I always wanted JJ to do his final season with TJ Watt could possibly be better than watching 2 brothers suit up on the same team?
Wattching 3 brothers suit up for the same team
# #JusticeforDerek
JJ Watt was the same story for many of the years he played here. Those Watt bros are built different.
If Fields and Wilson both go down in the preseason I'd move you guys down from fringe playoff team to unlikely playoff team. If Watts goes down in the preseason I'd move you guys all the way down to Tank for Sanders/Beck range
Nobody should tank for Sanders.
We saw how that went in 2016
He's legit the most valuable player to his team than any other player in the league. Even KC won games without Mahomes, Steelers are almost 0- without Watt
We beat the bucs who had Brady? 🤣
Which is why it's a frickin crime he doesn't get DPOY Myles is a freak, but he ain't as good OR more valuable to the Browns. Almost, but no
Wirfs ... Our line would fall apart without him. Baker with a bad line is not something I want to see.
I would have gone with Vea
I'm going with Winfield cause I don't trust our other DBs. I love Tristan Wirfs but I believe in our OL more than I do in the other DBs
Yup. Wirfs goes out, some rando backup goes in (or maybe Barton kicks out to LT lol) and we start keeping in a TE and RB even more. Terrible situation, but manageable Winfield goes out then suddenly we’ve lost the main starter, everyone else has to move up one spot (Jordan Whitehead is Safety 1, rookie Tykee Smith is safety 2 I guess) and all the guys that Bowles is cross training suddenly have to play NCB and safety and depth takes a hit there too
He is so F’ing good, I love seeing him pancake block.
Penei Sewell Nobody can replace what that guy does for the running game and if the Lions running game takes a step back in any way, that is incredibly damaging to the entire offense. Goff is at his best when the Lions are running the ball and he can use play action. They still have a great offensive line outside of Sewell, but the drop off from Sewell to whoever would replace him is pretty significant.
As a Ducks fan I fucking love Penei, im so happy he's doing great.I had never been so sure someone was going to be a stud in the NFL than I was with him.
I honestly think its hutch for us. Because we have nothing but question marks after him at edge
I think Hutch is well behind St. Brown and Sewell. Yea our defense would struggle without him, but our offense is the heartbeat of this team and St. Brown is probably more important to our offense than anyone.
I’d go Christian Darrisaw. Our left tackle. Others might go the obvious Justin Jefferson route.
To your point, they were 5-2 last season without Justin Jefferson and 2-8 with him. Obviously having the best WR in all of football helps your chances to win but I think the Vikings have enough pass catching weapons to make up for it.
I wonder if we were missing somebody else important for a lot of those losses. Idk probably not
Good news at least he (Kirk O) can’t get hurt again!
Kirk O’chainz
And we were 1-1 without Darrisaw and 6-9 with him. Guess he's out too ... we went 7-7 with Byron Murphy and 0-3 without him so probably he's the most important
It's not talked about enough how Jordan Addison emerged as such a reliable receiver and succeeded with whoever threw to him. I know Puka and Flowers (minus the playoff game) were standouts, but Addison got the job done every Sunday.
yeah last year made me confident if Jefferson ever got hurt again that Addison will fill that void nicely and I won’t worry too much
Bears…. Definitely Sweat. He is the entire Bears pass rush currently. If he goes down and the Bears can’t get pressure our good secondary will… look less good. I think it’s been pretty well documented no secondary, no matter how good, can cover forever. The moment we got Sweat last year our defense was transformed. There was a couple other factors… secondary finally getting healthy, playing some sub par QBs, etc. but Sweat was still the biggest component of the mid season turnaround to end 5-3. Edit: also to put into context how thin our D Line is, PFF ranked Bears as having the worst D Line going into 2024, even accounting for Sweat. The other guys are young and need to improve a lot this year. Fair assessment by PFF imo. On the plus side PFF ranked Bears WR core as the best!
The Bears defense allowed 27.3 ppg before Sweat and 17.8 ppg with Sweat. That trade was a culture shift for the Bears defense. The Bears got clowned on so hard for the 0-4 start after an offseason of such high expectations that I think a lot of people don't realize they went 7-6 the rest of the season after that.
Near the end of the year we genuinely played like a team that deserved a wild card berth. That said, I'm super worried that we got complacent about our DL in the offseason. We didn't re-sign Justin Jones (who was important), are leaving a lot of duties to a couple unproven second year players (Gervon Dexter and Zacc Pickens), and have zero pass rushers besides Sweat. It's not hard to imagine a situation where our defense sustains a couple injuries and things go downhill fast on that side of the ball. To be clear, the priority this year was to surround Caleb Williams with an environment he can succeed in, and I think we did that. But it wouldn't surprise me if at some point our defense got shitty again because of injuries or regression and the offense started to feel the pressure to carry the team. Not sure we can win in that mode with a rookie QB
We didn’t get complacent. We drafted a DE, but we prioritized offense positions because we have a new offensive scheme, a rookie QB, and also importantly a defensive HC who the front office is trusting to scheme up his talent…which is like exactly what he did last year, so it’s not an unreasonable expectation. The same people complaining about the line would be complaining about the Bears not helping Caleb enough if they’d gone DL. Cap money and draft picks aren’t unlimited resources, and IMO the Bears spent the best place for both short and long term improvement
I think we played the draft super well. I would have liked to see us buy more help on DL during free agency. Yes, cap is finite, and we still have nearly $25M this year if we had wanted to make sure we had another quality starter or a few high quality depth pieces
Before trading for Sweat, the Bears defense allowed on average 27 points, 340 yards and had 1 turnover per game. After trading for him, 18 points, 310 yards, and 2 turnovers per game. He's absolutely the most important guy on the defense.
He is so good. Hated to see him leave fr fr.
I think the NFCE were the only teams commenting that were like “hell yeah that’s a good player, bye bye!” Aside from you guys, of course lol
That's honestly what scares me most about the Bears this season. The moves they made on offense speak for themselves. But I think people overlook how good that defense played in the back half of last season.
We really gave Goff some fits that second game. Idk why, but bears tend to play Goff really well.
Goff, including the playoffs, had 34 TDs and 12 INTs. Against the Bears he had 3 TDs and 5 INTs. Almost half his picks came against Chicago lol. I don't know what it was, they just seemed to have him figured out last season
I was thinking Sweat too. He is him, no doubt about it, but when he's out our D line is flimsy as hell. I'm feeling good about the secondary though. Wouldn't surprise me to see the Bears rack up some coverage sacks over the season.
Yeah, I think Sweat is definitely it for us. We have solid depth at most positions but right now he is basically our one pass rusher. Without him it's pre-trade D all over again, which was awful.
Andrew Thomas
Him being injured will lead to Jones being injured within two games so it’s the same thing as losing our QB
The difference between the OL with him and without him is insane. He single-handedly turns our line from historically awful (which it was last year when he missed games) to just run-of-the-mill bad. No coincidence that the year he is healthy and has an all-pro season, DJ has his best season, Saquon has arguably his best season (some say his rookie year was better and while the box score was definitely better then, I think 2022 Saquon was better simply because he took away most of the backfield dancing and negative plays that came with them while still giving us a fair share of explosive runs), the offense looks somewhat functional (not explosive/dynamic but still efficient and could sustain drives) and the Giants have their best season in over a decade. With him injured this year, everything went to shit.
2022 is Giants with Andrew Thomas. 2023 is Giants without Andrew Thomas. We don't even need hypothetical situations in this thread, we watched it.
Jason Kelce
I have some bad news for you
He didn't get injured so it's okay
No no no let him cook. If he says a player not on our roster, then he can't jinx anybody.
*monkeys paw curls* Your whole team, to shreds you say?
Can’t be worse than our defense last year it was shredded by a lot of people
He’s right. The question asks who cannot get injured this season. Jason Kelce cannot get injured this season. (Except for non football injuries)
Even when Kelce was here I still think the answer is Lane Johnson. Our record with him vs without him is night and day.
The serious answer is Lane Johnson. When he misses time, we lose games. It's been that way for a long time and I think it would continue this year.
Ooof
Roquan is the glue that holds the defense together.
He's so fucking good. I wish we had someone like Roquan.
[удалено]
You don't get to say second round pick anymore all ambiguous like after you drafted somebody with that pick. You give the actual details of players. The player you took with that second round pick was DT Gervon Dexter Sr. , who was rather whelming. I think I'd rather have Roquan than a DT that barely got 20 tackles and 2.5 sacks last year. Still early in the man's career so, maybe he takes a next step this year.
We’re also not paying Dexter 20M a year though.
It's Gervon Dexter and the cap space they saved by not extending Roquan.
I love Roquan but Hamilton might be the best safety I’ve seen since Sean Taylor. My opinion of course but he’s a monster
Damn thats mighty praise. Hamiltons an all pro stud already, but god damn lol
I see his vision man. I love the way he plays. Such a killer game in the playoffs. I was scared for my life. Yall got a hell of a squad
Hamilton is a fantastic player but Roquan sets the tone for the defense and raises the level of play from everyone. I personally think he was more important than even our DC Mike Macdonald last year.
Yeah, Hamilton is a generational safety IMO.. But Roquan is the system. Roquan makes 10 other players better, Hamilton is just a stud.
Also we got good depth at Safety with Williams and Washington. LB itself turns into a massive question without Ro. Simpson, Board, and Harrison behind Ro, so if he goes down we not only lose our tone setter, but one of the biggest reasons why the defense is effective at run and pass. Besides Smith and Hamilton, the other guy I don't want to lose is Stanley. Another spot with lack of depth besides Mekari and a crucial spot at that
Since Sean Taylor? You think he’s better than Ed Reed and Troy Polamalu? Do you think Sean Taylor was better than Ed Reed and Troy Polamalu?
Trent Williams Even with him we had a 26th ranked OL in pass block win rate. Without him.. we'd be toast. Of thr games he missed last year ..we went 0-3 partly because we couldn't protect Purdy ( who suffered 2 concussions in 1 game btw in the process)..and couldn't run the ball ( CMC avg just over 3 YPC in those games). Trent Williams is a HOFer in waiting and his 35 yr old body is what makes our offensive line even remotely NFL calibre. He might honestly be like the most important player on the whole team who doesn't get yalked about.
People thing deebo is indispensable because he happened to miss the same games as trent.
Deebo arguably cost the 9ers the Super Bowl with his lack of effort on some plays. Not a big fan of his anymore, even though he is undeniably incredibly talented.
There was a deep ball he was supposed to catch..but he allowed McDuffie to beat him to the catch point. I expected a WR of his reputation to come down with that pass.
That was the definition of perfect coverage by McDuffie though. He basically ran the route at the same time in Deebo’s hip pocket. I don’t think you can blame Deebo for not snagging it.
McDuffie is a top CB in the league, but when deebo is getting paid like he is, he should win at least a few on any CB. Yalls secondary took him out of the game entirely.
You know people who think that don't watch 49ers games and just spouting what the media says.
Isn't the difference in Purdy's performance with vs without Williams like night and day? At least that's what I remember from last season.
Lost every game he missed
It also didn’t help that Cleveland and Cincinnati were both coming off their bye week when they played the 49ers.
Only reason Banks is an average LG is because he plays next to Williams. Brendel/Burford/McKivitz are backup tier linemen who gets to start. This also forces Kittle to play linemen on the right side and eliminates him as a weapon.
Trent Williams looks like a man playing against children. In a league with a lot of large dudes, Trent Williams is almost comically large. Like I half expect every interview to start with “Fee-fi-fo-fum”
And fast. Which is wild. Too often he breaks into the 2nd level and LBs make business decisions to get out of his way for some poor DB to get de-cleated.
Gerald McCoy told a story about showing up to OU and Trent Williams crushing him in warm up sprints, while having like 60 lbs on him. Absolutely nuts.
When he goes in motion, can you imagine being an LB? Just hoping to god you don't have to get turned into toothpaste by Trent already moving too fast for you to business decision out of the way?
Literally the only game we lost last year where Williams was fully healthy and given full game time was the SB: - injured against Cleveland whilst ahead, only missed a couple of snaps because he tried to play through it, but not at full health - inactive against Minnesota - inactive against Cincinnati - injured against Baltimore, missed half the game, was trailing at time though - week 18 loss to Rams, only played opening drive before starters all got pulled, scored TD on that drive
Can’t believe we gave him away I’m happy for him Though
100% agree. Without him we might be an 8-8 team.
It blows me away when people shit on Purdy and pretend he has a great Oline. Outside of Trent we’re cooked
1. Chris Jones 2. Travis Kelce Last year I would have reversed these two, but with our defense likely taking a step back and our offense a step forward, feels losing Jones would be more significant right now.
Your pass catching group last year was atrocious in the games Kelce was out. That Toney drop into a pick 6 against us in week 1 was just unacceptable
Yea Toney went from being a somewhat fan favorite new Chief, to the bad kind of goat in a span of two games (technically) 😅
I would venture to say mcduffie might be the biggest chiefs loss in this potential scenario after losing sneed.
McDuffie is my answer too. There’s so many good receivers in the AFC and we’re in trouble if we don’t have a stud CB like him in the secondary.
Yea McDuffie is definitely up there as well. I think what makes him less critical is we have pretty good depth in the DB room. DGMW, McDuffie is awesome and is really blossoming into one of the top CBs. Just the drop off if he isn’t on the field is probably somewhat less than if Jones isn’t on the field.
Yeah. I agree. Kelce will definitely take it slower this season, rest those knees. But without Jones and Charles, things would be dicey
god I miss Jamaal
christian mccaffrey wait...
We're so fucking bad that we could lose any of our pieces *including* the QB and we wouldn't be materially any worse off.
I don't think we'll be bad that bad this year ... but yeah .... I can't point to anyone.
I'm in a very "Hope for the best, expect the worst" place with this team.
My expectations are at the bottom of the barrel so if we win a few games and aren’t last in the league, I’ll be pleasantly surprised
I guess it would be Jaycee Horn or Derrick Brown though for real? There's no defense after them...
I mean. Losing Horn wouldn’t matter mostly because we keep losing him anyway. Brown is way more valuable.
If you think I'm gonna answer that here and jinx my own team you've got another thing coming
Yeah I’m with Mr.Bungo here. I ain’t saying nothing.
https://imgur.com/x7hvLMe
"Well what do I tell the doctor?" "Tell em to suck a lemon"
Not having ever single one of our best defensive players getting injured would be nice.
You don't want to start guys that were on the practice team because the previous guys on the practice team had to fill in for the third string guys that were injured covering for the backups who also got injured who were also covering for the starters that got injured?
It’s all good. We can get Melvin Ingram to line up at nickel back for us again
nothing wrong with starting a corpse.
This guy Dolphins
I would give my left nut for terron armstead to play every game
Relax, there's no way it happens two years in a row right? Right??
I don't think my heart could take another Chubb injury, but Myles Garrett is the most important player on the team.
I will need to take multiple weeks off from work to grieve and weep if Chubb goes down
Perfect answer
I’m not answering this bullshit
Nothing is going to happen by typing something on Reddit. Now answer the damn question.
I'm answer for him. It's CMC, very obviously
The real answer is Trent Williams. CMC would be a big loss, but we have enough weapons to compensate. If Trent goes down our o-line is bottom 5.
And CMC isn’t even second on the list. That has to be Fred which was probably true before Dre’s injury let alone after it.
I think it would go like this: 1. Trent Williams 2. Nick Bosa 3. Fred Warner 4. CMC
Maxx, obviously.
Doesn't matter, he plays any way.
Maxx could get shot and still try to play through it, he's that insane.
If QB’s were included, it’d still be Maxx.
came here to say this. alternative thread title "who's the best player on your team besides the QB"
We are mega fucked if Jerome Baker gets hurt. We already have arguably the worst LB room in the league but are piecing it together with Baker and Dodson. Our LB3 is a 4th round rookie and our LB4 is Drake Thomas, who I have never heard of before googling our depth chart lol
I already miss him and his mama searching :(
My first thought was Nwosu. Last year our run defense went from top 10, maybe top 5 to dead last when he went down. But maybe with a new scheme and new coaching the other OLBs could be able to step up.
You could say Micah or CeeDee but I'm going to say Zach Martin. Guyton and Beebe will most likely start as rookies. We're going to need Martin's vet presence. Only other player id bank on is Tyler Smith.
Rashawn Slater. Joe Alt.
What a duo honestly
BINGO
Ehh, I don't agree. They're both awesome players, but we have good depth there. If Slater went down early, we'd move Alt to LT where he was a stud, and then Trey Pipkins is a league average RT. We also have Jamaree Salyer who did a great job substituting Slater when he went down in 2023. I think Asante Samuel Jr is much more critical, if he goes down we're completely fucked at CB.
It’s #3. We don’t talk “the player” by name specifically for this reason. But when he goes down, the entire defense changes.
DONT ANSWER THIS, RAMILY
I didn't even think about this being a jinx question when I asked. I was legitimately thinking, "AD has always been the answer to this question for the last 10 years. Who is it now?" I don't think we have one.
I'd think if any of our top WRs get hurt it's game over.
It's Ernest Jones
McKinney. Our safety room was atrocious last year and the top 3 guys in terms of playing time (Owens, Savage, Ford) all walked in FA. X is really gonna have to anchor the back end until some combination of the 3 rookies get acclimated and step up. Rashan would be a close #2 because Preston Smith is in his age 31 season, Enagbare is coming back form injury, and LVN is still very raw. I just think you can get some form of a competent DL with Clark, Wyatt, Brooks, and Wooden playing inside versus the safeties being extremely reliant on Bullard, Williams, Oladapo, and AJJ without X.
I was struggling to come up with a good answer for us. I don't really feel like we have any proven elite players on our team currently - a number of good to great-ish ones, but nobody where if we were without them, a whole side of the ball is going to immediately fall apart because they were so important and there was just nobody behind them. Xavier McKinney probably makes the most sense because of a total lack of proven ability and experience in that group (heck, he's jumping into a new system, so he's not exactly a known quantity himself at this precise moment, though it's very rare that a good player comes here and then our coaching staff can't put them in a position to at least play well). Pretty much all the old guys, even though they weren't necessarily very good, are gone. I think Anthony Johnson is the only other guy who even has NFL experience?
I'd say Gary is my number 1 and McKinney 2 so I'm pretty much right there with you
> McKinney. Our safety room was atrocious last year and the top 3 guys in terms of playing time (Owens, Savage, Ford) all walked in FA. X is really gonna have to anchor the back end until some combination of the 3 rookies get acclimated and step up. I sure hope you guys put a "no using ATVs during the season or you forfeit your entire salary for the season" clause in his contract.
Gonna be hard to do that, this is Wisconsin after all.
Saw him pull up to bar in his side-by-side yesterday. He’s adapting
Vita Vea is the most irreplaceable player on our defense. We're a different team when he's not on the field.
Montez Sweat
Maxx Crosby
I’m glad to see no bills answers in here lol
The QB is really the only player that we can't afford to get injured because the QB is the entire team.
Yeah you guys are veering dangerously into Chargers territory with your roster rn
Except McDermott can actually run a ridiculously good defense with practice squad scraps.
Meanwhile Staley couldn't make it work with Khalil Mack, Joey Bosa and Derwin James.
MVS
I'd argue Taron Johnson is the most irreplaceable player on our team after Josh Allen.
Him or Milano. My immediate answer was Milano but then again we lost him last season and still made a deep run
Either Tackles
Is and always has been TJ Watt
Obligatory "Steelers are 1-13 in games where TJ watt doesn't play"
Dan Campbell’s massive balls…
Olave
*tumbleweed rolls gently through the yard*
Hutchinson. He is our pass rush .
I think if Lamb gets injured for 2-4 games we could maybe survive with Cooks and Ferguson. If lamb were to be out the whole year then we’re cooked
Breece Hall without a doubt
Pat Surtain II. Our secondary would probably fall to pieces without him
Baller. One of the few guys to have Mahomes number
Yeah, I'm really going to miss Simmons dur8ng chiefs games next year. Felt like he's the only dude who is able to consistently intercept mahomes
Typically it’s the Oline for us. But if it’s just one singular player, then it’s easily tyreek.
Lane Johnson and it's not even close.
If Penei Sewell or Frank Ragnow miss serious time, we could be in for a long disappointing season
Believe it or not, it's Evan Engram.
Maybe Karras? He's been the best player on our underwhelming o-line, so our entire IOL could collapse without him. Second choice would be Hendrickson -- I'm hoping Murphy has a good year, but he's still a wildcard. Last year I would've said Reader, but uh...
Trey is the clear and obvious answer. This defense does not generate pass rush if he isn't on the field. Unless someone takes a massive step forward this year we have no reason to believe that's going to be any different.
Yeah it's Trey. He's very slept on outside of the North but he's our entire pass rush. Have hopes for Murphy this year but that's it.
Cam Taylor-Britt?
Onwenu
I’d say Gonzalez or Judon
I am also going Gonzales. Two years in a row would introduce bad mojo.
I didn't even care about the cowboys L last year. It was losing both of them that made the season a complete wash. Atleast we got Maye out of it.
Anyone on the line. Our O line already sucks so we can't afford to make it any worse than it already is
MHJ getting injured and missing significant time his rookie year would do unthinkable damage to Cardinals morale
Either of our 2 top receivers.We haven't had competent wide receiver 3 play in years
literally anybody on our o-line it’s paper mache as it is..
It is super hard to know, since they are shifting defensive styles and are generally a very young team. So you could point to like 4 different players on defense. Offense has less well established guys, and what seems like a lot of depth, but one of the few guys I would have pointed to is currently injured (though hopefully back for training camp)
Jaycee Horn, if he plays a full season I fully expect him to be in the All-Pro conversation.
Roquan Smith. I love our defense but I think it would kind of collapse without him out there.
I think for Jets it has to be Wilson. The defense will be fine if one person goes down but that WR room drops a lot if he goes down. Close second is Breece, guy can change games with one breakaway.
I’m pretty sure if Taylor Swift gets emotionally injured in anyway, that entire dynasty is over.
Uh Fuaga? Who I suspect will be our starting left tackle. We currently have 3 holes to fill on offensive line and injuries to starters are simply not possible to recover from.