I'm not going to sit here and rage about the Cousins/RGIII call even though I think we should have brought Cousins in after halftime. Coaches and medical staff knew the facts and stuck with RGIII. Had we benched RGIII earlier there is no guarantee we win and right now opposing fans would be saying RGIII was a wussy and had we lost everyone would be claiming Shanahan should have played RGIII instead of babying him. It wasn't an easy decision either way.
That game sucked but it is behind us. crap happens. Have to look forward. The future is bright. Let's take a look forward at this offseason with an understanding we are light in the draft (I still think we should call the Rams and give them another 1st rounder for good measure) and have a limited draft budget.
RGIII's situation is frustrating but it doesn't define the future. Like I said about Strasburg, he is one player. One of 22 starters, one of 53 players. Tremendously talented, tremendously important, but just one player. Assuming he doesn't have surgery, I expect nothing but improvement from him. He played a bit smarter after his concussion and his second injury was flukey. He looked good as a passer, great as a runner. I expect with another offseason a little more emphasis will be put on him as a straight dropback passer instead of the limited packages we used this year. He has a huge arm and a great IQ. Could not ask for more. If he has to have surgery? Yikes. Hopefully he is back soon but if not that is why we drafted Cousins. Tell RGIII to get healthy at his own pace.
The rest of the offense looks solid. The receivers are young. Morgan and Garcon are good starters and the backups are talented. I think we're fine here. Paulsen is a keeper at TE and hopefully we can get Fred Davis back. The backfield is deep if we get Helu back. The O-Line is serviceable, but I'd be happy for a pickup at LG or RT. We have the guys on roster right now at every position to go into next year set on offense but an extra lineman would be nice. A receiving TE is a must if Fred Davis is done here.
Defensively our personnel at the end couldn't be worse on paper. Upfront the defense was much better than expected. Jarvis Jenkins is a big time prospect and will be a year further from knee surgery. Carriker and Nield returning gives us options depth wise. Linebacker will be a position of strength with Orakpo back. Great defenses can bring subs like Rob Jackson off the bench. Praying Fletcher gives us one more go around. The secondary was awful. Any available resources need to go there first. Hall and Wilson are serviceable starters, but behind them yikes. Have to get better. I can't imagine it will be hard at all to fine affordable guys who will be upgrades.
I say big offseason priorities are add a starting safety (or two), maybe a RT, and finding some depth defensively. Not impossible tasks.
It all starts with the quarterbacks, but for the other 52 guys on the roster we should have a really salty team next season.