The Cardinal Countdown: 92 Days Until Kickoff

2021 Season Recap: Bryant saw action in nine games last year, predominantly at the nose tackle position, and finished the 2021 season with two tackles. Bryant, like a couple others already on this countdown, showed some flashes of solid play but was never dominate enough to get significant reps at a position that needed some help.

2022 Season Outlook: If I ‘m starting to sound repetitive it’s because in the first week of the countdown we’ve covered three players who will all be positioning themselves to take the next step at a very significant position on the defensive line, nose tackle. I’ve touched on this before but in the last four years my opinion on the play at that position as a whole has been “average” at best, with a slight lean towards “not great”, especially since the departure of GG Robinson. While not all of this falls on the players as many were playing out of position or trying to fill a void, the ownness lies on the staff to go and get a dog in the middle who can compete at this level, and they just haven’t done it so far. I think Bryant has shown he can play the position, as has Tell, and Dawson, but none of them have shown that they can do it every down over and over again. For those who have followed this countdown the last eleven plus season you know I rock my rose colored glasses most of the summer, but this has been a pain point for years and we need a younger guy like Bryant to grow into this spot. I think the addition of the upperclassman transfer Jermayne Lole will undoubtedly help this group if he is a good fit in terms of mentoring and molding these freshman and sophomores into guys who can be a big piece of the defense in the next 2-3 years.

Sweet Tweet:

Evidently my man HB3 is part of a documentary called ‘I Will Soar” highlighting his old squad. It may not be “Last Chance U” or “QB1” in terms of hype, but I’ll watch just about anything football related in the dog days of summer. Now just got to rope the wife into some ‘football docs and chill’ evenings.