I think the offense will be more than productive enough to cover for any defensive drop off from last year. Last year the D carried the offense and even outscored them at times.

RTR91 said:

We lost unbelievable talent and then lost their replacements to injury. That's the problem thus far. We'll see what happens as guys get back from injuries. Still won't be what we had the last two years with that front seven.

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This is what has happened. We lost our top 4 pass rushers against FSU with 2 out for the entire year. When you are getting an edge rush which all 4 of these guys bring/brought it opens up the inside rush/blitzes. We don't have that now but help is on the way. Agreed it is not to last year's standard but it would be a lot better if we did not have those injuries.

uafanataum said:

We have, for the past 8 years, just reloaded every year. Why can that not happen this year? Did our staff miss on a few recruits or were the guys that left the type that rarely come arround and it's like catching lightening in w bottle to get them on the same team?

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My opinion is that we had lightning in a bottle with all three of them on the same team for the same years. Just the three of them account for over 22% of all the sacks bama registered since Saban arrived. Add in the other two departures from the front, Tomlinson and Foster, and that's almost 26% of all the sacks in Saban's tenure. The last two years we averaged 53 sacks where before we were averaging 28. From the edge, we've had a couple of other players Upshaw and Dickson) get close to the level of production that Williams and Anderson put up, but still not quite as good and never two on the field at the same time. I had high hopes for lewis/miller/jennings but knew they likely wouldn't be quite as good as what we lost. From the inside, no one has been even close to what Allen did. Dareus is the closest, and Allen put up 2.5 times the sacks he did. It's really not even in the same conversation. I don't think we've got anyone on the roster now who can replace what Allen brought at this point in their career. Q. Williams might grow into it, as might Ray, but they'd be where allen was earlier in his career, not what he was as a junior and senior.

Saban said some interesting stuff about how this team is different and adjusting expectations for this defense

Rewinding what Nick Saban said on his radio show

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This could be a team that wins games with scores like 41-21 and while our fans nitpick the defense Bama keeps on winning. Teams change. Winning is still winning.

RollTide_HTTR said:

Saban said some interesting stuff about how this team is different and adjusting expectations for this defense

Rewinding what Nick Saban said on his radio show

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Is there a way to get the full transcript of what he says on his radio show? I do read the highlights from al.com but would like to read or listen to the entire show.

rgw said:

With our injury misfortune, I think the staff is putting all options on the table.

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There's no question that Alabama needs some luck going forward. A couple more season ending injuries heading into the playoffs (like Alabama had with Eddie Jackson and SDH) and there's just no way I see Alabama winning a championship. You can only lose so much...

But! I remember when Hightower was lost for the year and the huge loss that seemed to represent. Alabama's defense wasn't the same either after that in my opinion, but it was early enough that they had time to adjust and to get acclimated. The one saving grace thus far is that it's far better to have most of a season to get the backups game ready than to be headed into the home stretch trying to fill a massive hole left by losing one of your best defenders recently.

Saban4Ever said:

Is there a way to get the full transcript of what he says on his radio show? I do read the highlights from al.com but would like to read or listen to the entire show.

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al.com posted it here

Nolan said:

This could be a team that wins games with scores like 41-21 and while our fans nitpick the defense Bama keeps on winning. Teams change. Winning is still winning.

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Agreed. For the first time since 2007 we may have to outscore teams to win games. Fortunately we have the offense to do it IMO.

TiderJ said:

Agreed. For the first time since 2007 we may have to outscore teams to win games. Fortunately we have the offense to do it IMO.

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So far anyway, we`ve not seen signs that this offense cannot run the football and run it well. I hope that that indicates a gelling of the O line. If that`s so, we may well be able to outscore people, even in a shootout, as alien a concept as that may seem to us.

Tideflyer said:

So far anyway, we`ve not seen signs that this offense cannot run the football and run it well. I hope that that indicates a gelling of the O line. If that`s so, we may well be able to outscore people, even in a shootout, as alien a concept as that may seem to us.

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It's not our norm, but far from alien. UGA in '12, TAMU in '13, AU in '14, Clemson in '15, OM last year were all games we had to out score out opponent in a shootout.

TideFan in AU said:

It's not our norm, but far from alien. UGA in '12, TAMU in '13, AU in '14, Clemson in '15, OM last year were all games we had to out score out opponent in a shootout.

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I happily stand corrected! I think I was just reliving all those suffocatingly dominant defenses in my mind.