[Bigtinylittle]

Something I noticed last year which surprised me is that the defense seemed to take a step backward compared to the last half of the previous year. I find that a bit puzzling. I was really expecting the defense to statistically outperform the offense last year and that didn't come anywhere close to happening.

Considering that Mario elevated his play greatly over his rookie year, it is even more puzzling. Injurywise, we lost our first and second string strong safeties for almost the whole year, we lost our premier cornerback for half the year, and Weaver was below par because of his shoulder. Also Ryans was apparently banged up pretty good toward the end of the season.Those injuries surely hurt us, but we obviously had injuries the year before too, yet we took a step backward. I have tried hard to understand why, and I really can't put my finger on it.

We definately took a step back against the run. Maybe Okoye was part of the problem. Maybe he wasn't holding up well at the point of attack. If that is the case, I hope he has done some bigtime work in the weight room to help remedy that.

Maybe Weaver was even worse than his statistics reveal. Maybe he really pulled us down badly last year.

I agree that we didn't seem agressive last year. But one thing I noticed was that when we blitzed, the other team's offense almost always seemed to be able to contain our rush. I guess it's a personnel problem, but maybe not. One thing is for sure: if you blitz and you still don't get pressure, you are in for a long afternoon.

In this year's draft, we added a cornerback who is supposed to be excellent at jamming recievers at the line. That's a good sign. We added an OLB who is supposed to be able to be a very solid blitzer. That's another good sign.

We added a 330 pounder at DT who is supposed to have very good speed for his size. That should help us in third and short situations, which we didn't play well in at all last year. I have a hunch that Okam's limitation is going to be endurance, but if we are using him mostly as a situational player, his endurance may not be a problem. That's another good sign.

I expect all three of those rookies to get playing time this season and I'm expecting them to make us more agressive.

I think one of the big keys is going to be Okoye. If he takes that big step up and becomes the player we drafted him to be, if Thompson or someone else can give us a bit of an edge presence opposite Mario, and if Robinson gan get back to his old self, I think we could have an above average NFL defense this year. And if our future drafts continue to be as good as our first two were, we could easily get to be an elite one.