2022 Official Bolts Draft Superthread

[Leslie Grossman]

The only great WRS to ever win a SB had a very good to great QB and O Line, with at least an average defense.
There is a long list of HOF receivers who never won it.

[sonorajim]

On top of that this draft proves they will run the ball more as well.
More time of poss also keeps the defense off the field.
If Spiller, Everett, Palmer, and Parham are who we think they are, there aren't enough footballs to go around.
Horvath and Leddie Brown/JJ could tote the rock as well behind a potentially great run blocking O Line.

Looks that way. Draft two quality OL, sign a FA jumbo blocker, RB, RB/FB in the draft.
Staley wants to have a viable alternative to the pass.
Complete offense.

[QSmokey]

We lost too many. 9-8, .500 in one-score games (those are typically won by a WR making a clutch catch last time I checked…).

MW not a 'top WR'? KA not a 'top WR'? Tough crowd.

Seriously, MW and KA are not Top 5 WRs (not even Top 10), but in the upper echelon, in my estimation. Certainly more than capable of making the clutch catch in crunch time, IMO.

[sonorajim]

We lost too many. 9-8, .500 in one-score games (those are typically won by a WR making a clutch catch last time I checked…).

LOL! Sure, could go that way. Or maybe play some D ( which we were among NFL worst at).

I'm a big fan of our D adds. QB pressure, stop the run, get stops & takeaways.
Play quality special teams.

[Velo]

The only great WRS to ever win a SB had a very good to great QB and O Line, with at least an average defense.
There is a long list of HOF receivers who never won it.

The Patriots won a number of Super Bowls without a superstar WR or even having a particularly deep WR corps. Meanwhile WRs like Calvin Johnson, Andre Thompson and DeAndre Hopkins never got close. Davante Adams, Michael Thomas and Adam Thielen have never been to a Super Bowl. Julio Jones got there once and his team lost.

[equivocation]

Just a reminder that most of the players we liked and/or coveted and/or were consensus favorites are not going to stick in the NFL.

[Steve]

We lost too many. 9-8, .500 in one-score games (those are typically won by a WR making a clutch catch last time I checked…).

Having a running game can help keep a team out of those situations in the first place.

[equivocation]

Not having to mount so many desperate comebacks would also probably be good for our record.

[Boltjolt]

A top WR squad would be scoring TDs to win games when it counts. Ours ain’t there yet, somewhere in the middle..

I'd say our defense was responsible for those games than our WRs. If our defense is middle of the pack, we make the playoffs and maybe even win round 1.

Last against 3rd down, and I think bottom 5 in points allowed. When it counted our defense folded.

[Steve]

A big key is adding more weapons to the offense. Sure, a top #1 WR is nice, but any decent D in the NFL can double and triple cover that top WR to death. And that makes those big catches late in the game problematic if the QB has to throw into double/triple coverage. Herbert could do that from time to time, but sooner or later, it's going to turn out badly. Defenses can't double everyone, and in key situations, it gives the offense more options.

The other thing that it can really help with is play-action. Staley took a lot of crap for saying that play-action can still be effective even if you don't have a strong running game. He is completely right about that. However, if you have a really strong running game, it can be even more effective. When we ran the ball last year, late in the season we got some balance, but that was largely due to defenses selling out to stop the run on the left side. But things still came up short in the goalline and in short-yardage because we didn't have confidence that we could run on the right side and get tough yards.

[Berserker76]

Having a running game can help keep a team out of those situations in the first place.

This. I'm hoping we finally have one again compliments of Johnson & Spiller.

[Topcat]

We lost too many. 9-8, .500 in one-score games (those are typically won by a WR making a clutch catch last time I checked…).

Remember that our gassed and in some positions outmatched D also gave up a lot of points in the 4th quarter of several of those losses...