Just going back to what I thought going into the season vs observations through 10 games.
QB: I thought that Rocco would be a game manager. Make the easy throws and try not to turn the ball over. He's been more than that...at least after the staff started trusting him more. He's not perfect and he's not Brock Purdy, but he does a lot of good things. He still struggles with accuracy at times and has thrown some bad pick 6's, but for the most part you can count on him to hit guys that are open and move the ball down the field. I figured that Kohl might be pushing him by now and that we'd have running packages for Hughes. Neither of those have happened and Becht has been better than I had hoped.
RB: I really didn't know what to think of this group going in. Sanders had trouble seeing the hole and went down too easily. Norton was injury prone. Sama and Hansen were TRFR and Harris barely played at Stanford. Well, Sanders has improved a ton. Norton hasn't missed very many games. Sama has started to show real potential as a feature back. I knew in the summer that we had a bunch of backs with different skillsets, but none of them had really proven anything yet and none of them were Jirehl Brock. But they've all slowly improved and at this point, we have a nice rotation.
WR: Guess I didn't expect much here. I was very critical of Noel for his drops and being soft. Higgins had hype, but it was at a lower level. Stanley didn't do much last year and Jackson couldn't stay on the field. They had some young guys that had potential, but that's it. Noel doesn't look soft any more and he's not dropping balls either. Higgins has turned into a solid target. He's not Hutchinson, but with Noel picking up the slack, he doesn't need to be. Jackson has stayed healthy and is contributing. Stanley is still Stanley. Guess I'm a little disappointed that guys like Gaines, Essex, Ngoyi haven't made a dent, but I can't complain about what the starters are doing.
TE: Was a weakness last year and I wondered how they would be better without Hanika. Well, it's a strength this year. Most of that is Brahmer catching the ball, but Dean and Klotz are also blocking better. We're not as predictable with the H-Back and we're actually sealing the edge at times, which was a huge problem last year. Brahmer is only going to get better and he's good now.
OL: I expected some struggles early on and slow improvement. That's kind of what we've gotten. I did not expect Brendan Black to be starting games. I thought with Hasert out and Remsburg sitting 6 games, we might be in trouble. We're still not good, but it seems like we're inching towards average. I would have signed up for that in a second in August.
DL: I figured that Orange and Onyedim could do their jobs well. Singleton and Okoli mixing in behind them would be good depth. My one concern was pass rush out of what I thought would be a rotation of Peterson, Ezeogu and Adam. Guess I wasn't far off here other than getting a few names wrong. RE is still a concern, but our coverage has been good enough at times where we could bring a LB and not be hurt by it.
LB: We had one solid returnee and a bunch of bodies. When they named Sadowsky a starter, I figured we had our next Mike Rose. He's OK, but he doesn't make plays as a TRFR that Rose did. Lovett has turned into a good spy. McLaughlin has been better at LB than I thought he'd be. Bacon has been really good rushing the passer. Overall, LB hasn't been great and even Vaughn takes really bad angles at times. I guess the silver lining is that most of them are young and will get better. And we get another 3 really good players coming in next summer. Competition is going to be stiff at LB the next few years.
DB: I thought that we had an elite group and we do. My one hesitation was that the Safeties had all had injury issues in the past. That has come back to bite us some and the backups either aren't very good or aren't ready. It's just a tough situation for a young player, because this defense absolutely depends on the Safeties to make the right decisions and tackle well. Get Cooper back and we'll be fine. Everyone returns for next year and the young guys will have a year under their belts.
ST: If someone would have asked me what are we going to do without Chase Contrerez in 2024, I would have laughed at them. But he's been really good. Figured Perkins would have a good year. He just needed to get his punts off quicker and he had a whole offseason to work on that. I've been really impressed with our return game. Didn't think Noel had that in him and honestly, I thought that we had the wrong guy back there. I don't now.
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