No sugar-coating this: losing Jaelen Phillips sucks. It’s a real blow to a defense that had really been rounding into excellent form. Seriously – with Phillips playing at a Pro Bowl level, it was showing out as a top-5 defensive unit in the NFL. That said, I’m finding solace in a few areas after the Black Friday game:
- There are some decent options to take up the massive slack left by Phillips’ absence. Van Ginkel and Ogbah should mitigate the loss to a certain extent. They won’t be able to provide the threat that Phillips did, but they should be able to prevent a terribly steep drop-off.