Hardest to find commodity after QB and WR, tied with LT, IMO.
But it is one position, unlike those others, you can do by committee. You don’t have to be the very best at it to win games. Dallas was top five at it last year, for example, and they couldn’t stop anybody or beat anybody real. Same with the Raiders and Cincy
I'm curious to see what the defense looks like under Eberflus, he doesn't need a bunch of elite players to cobble together a good defense.
In his first season with the Colts they were 10th in the league in scoring and 12th in turnovers, their best players were Shaquille Leonard (as a rookie), Malik Hooker, Kenny Moore, Jabaal Sheard, Margus Hunt and Denico Autry.
In 2020 they were again 10th in scoring and 5th in takeaways, these were their best players: DeForest Buckner, Shaquille Leonard, Grover Stewart, Kenny Moore, Justin Houston (at 31), Denico Autry, Khari Willis, Julian Blackmon and Bobby Okereke.
In 2021 they were 9th in scoring and 2nd in takeaways with largely the same group, plus Al-Quadin Muhammad playing a big role in place of Houston.
Those are some pretty spare pieces outside of Leonard, Buckner and Stewart, and I think what we have matches up pretty closely and could even be better.
Will they actually play well? Probably not because this organization is a shit show, but Eberflus has done well with so-so talent before and I don't think it's impossible that this group is in the top half of the league.