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The way I see it, there’s 2 major problems with this team rn: the OL and the wrs. In regards to the line, I actually think our problems mostly remedy themselves in 2024. Health has been this lines biggest issue. We have had our starting guards play exactly 0 games together this year. Icky is still young. If he figures it out, the rest of the OL should be average if not better than average in 2024. With that out of the way, what I want to discuss here is what the fug we are supposed to do at WR. Thielen has been a pleasant surprise, but he’s old and not as good as his stats would indicate. Mingo had 0 good college seasons and looks incapable of running routes early on. Perhaps he pans out, but based on every historical data point, I think it’s fair to classify that as “unlikely.” No one else on the roster is worth discussing. So, how do we fix the issue of having no weapons? The 2 obvious answers are: FA and the draft. FA: the simple fact of the matter is great wrs do not hit FA. I do not see how the bengals or niners let Higgins/ Ayuik go for nothing in return. This has been the case for some years. Most recently, the highest impact wrs who departed in FA were Christian kirk (wr3 on his own team at the time) and Hopkins (old, apparently didn’t want to practice). Both these players were on the same team. Statistically speaking, it would be a massive outlier for any talented and under 30 wr to be available. As such, this cannot be the plan. The Draft: many first round wrs come into the league and have great impacts their rookie seasons. This is imo, the most probable way to fix the wr corps. Just one problem; we don’t have a first. The brings us to day 2 wrs: statistically speaking, much less likely that they pan out. Going back 6 years (too early to grade 2023 but looks bleak) from 2022 to 2018 there were 50 day 2 wrs drafted. Of those 50, 13 were hits according to me (please tell me how stupid I am in comments bc it’s really 12 or 14). That’s a ~1/4 chance of hitting on a day 2 wr. As such, this is also not a probable solution. Trading: this is how the good teams get wrs. Josh Allen: total bust until they traded for diggs. Tua: bust until hill (and waddle) showed up. Hurts: classic rushinh qb who can’t throw until AJb (and smith) get there. What do all of these have in common? That’s right! Acquired with First round picks! What do we not have? A first! Conclusion: every plausible avenue to acquire a wr1 is not available to us. The plan seems to be to get lucky. So, Carolina fans, are you feeling lucky?