Let's check our team out at the 1/4 mark:
Offense:
Quarterback: Blaine Gabbert moved out of the bottom 5 in PFF QB rankings you cocksucking motherfuckers! WWOOOOOOOOOOO!
Who's ranked lower? Oh, you know...Bradford, Dalton, Kaepernick, Flacco, and Manuel. Four of those guys were picked about 28 rounds before Gabbert. Realistically, I still think that Fitzpatrick is an average/slightly below average QB and would be performing as such with this team.
I'm not as downtrodden on this position as I was a few weeks ago. it's certainly not good - or even close to average - but it isn't the death sentence it looked like in week 1.
Running Back: Demarco Murray is the 6th ranked RB, Moreno is 20th. Considering we needed a focal point of our offense, I'll take that production from an 11th round and 28th round pick.
Wide Receivers: Dwayne Bowe is 69th overall, Greg Jennings is 30th. Although Jennings is docked some points for blocking and is ranked 19th for pure "pass receiving".
Ryan Swopes is dead. I think. Aldrick Robinson hasn't seen the field.
Acceptable, although definitely not good.
Offensive Line: OK here. 3rd ranked and 5th ranked tackles. 21st/43rd ranked guards. Worst ranked center on the entire planet.
Still, having 2 of the best 5 tackles in football is amazing and would do wonders to help boost the others rank.
Defense:
Front Four: Overall? Pretty fucking awesome. 9th and 21st ranked defensive ends (2nd and 12th in sacks). 5th ranked defensive tackle. Glenn Dorsey is ranked 7th out of players with 25% of snaps. this unit us awesome.
Linebackers: Willis is good, but hurt. Manny Lawson has picked up his game and is ranked 12th at OLB. Arthur Brown has also been hurt, but is starting to get onto the field. When these guys are healthy, they're also a top unit.
Cornerbacks: Xavier Rhodes has played very well. Webb looks to be shaking off the rust, but isn't playing fantastic right now. Richard Marshall was really bad, but has since started to play better.
OK showing, but not great. I certainly have hope that they'll improve going forward.
Safety: Clemons has come back to earth and Cyprien has had some serious growing pains at safety. Tashuan Gipson, who we got in the 31st round, has been a revelation though. He's a borderline top 10 safety right now. He and Clemons form a pretty good tandem back there.
Overall:
This team is pretty much exactly what we thought. This defense, while slightly under performing expectation, is still really fucking good. On offense, we may have one of the best running games with a top 5 running back and a very good offensive line. The problem is that teams can stack 8 in the box, although I think Fitzpatrick has the ability to keep teams honest enough to prevent that from happening too often.
If I had to wager a guess on our record:
Jnai Dolphins: Think our defense eats Matt Barkley/Christian Ponder and an overrated T-Richardson for breakfast. Linebackers are good, but defense looks pretty juicy in the secondary.
Nomario Ravens: If Kaepernick turns it around, he probably wins this game. But with Kaep playing like shit, some unproven running backs, no Crabtree, James Jones playing poorly...I don't see how the Ravens score enough points to win. Lots of runs over the tackle/TE, and play action to a pretty weak secondary beats the Ravens. We probably take a bit of a beating up the middle since Gradkowski sucks, but our guards (especially Asomoah) are solid. We'd win. I think. Injuries/bad seasons really hurt this team.
Sleepy Jose Vikings: Toss up, although I think we probably lose this game. Pretty solid defense against or pretty poor offense, and Palmer/Manuel may be good enough to help Vikes hang low 20's on our defense.
SoxFan Bengals: He has no running game, but his defense is probably good enough to keep us in the teens, and that isn't beating Tom Brady.
Pessimist says this team is 1-3, Optimist says the team is 3-1. Probably end up 2-2 quarter of the way through the season.
Edit: I lied. Glenn Dorsey has played well and gotten time. Ranked 7th out of players with 25% of snaps.