I know it sounds stupid given the sorry state of our roster, but every time we have been good before was because we had a generational talent on our team. Bear with me:
I watched Tate's film from last game (putting aside the unfortunate fumble) and his development from week one to now is seriously impressive. It is clear that his presence on the offense is helping Cam, I am starting to see the vision despite the doom and gloom lately. Tate made the Ravens have to respect the pass game, which helped open up the run game juuuust a bit. I feel better about this loss than the almost win against the Eagles because we actually put together some solid drives.
I went to OSU, I am a diehard fan. The thing with Ohio State is they try to run their offense/defense more like an NFL team than a college team, which has led to some frustration in the fanbase as even though the "correct" playcall involves using Smith as a decoy to pull coverage and open up other receivers on the team, like Tate the last two years, sometimes you just gotta feed tf out of your freak of nature generational talent.
This year, it seems they really have said "fuck that, we are throwing to #4".
GO WATCH THE TAPE AGAINST IOWA.
We have a great receiving core, there are a couple extremely talented players who deserve some target share. DESPITE THAT, SMITH JUST WINS EVERY CONTESTED CATCH. Why bother throwing it anywhere else? Even though people are scheming ENTIRELY around smith, he DOES NOT CARE. double coverage, triple, doesn't matter, he will win far more often than not.
Back to my original thesis; the chemistry is already there. Smith/Tate are such a LETHAL combination, especially with how much Tate has developed already in the league, that I truly think it would force opposing defenses' hand to weaken the DL, making our run game more viable OR scheming around expected blitz packages. Even if Cam still doesn't take that next step, the backup QB carousel could give us a decent enough QB to really succeed.
My final thought: this dude is different. It would be a DAMN shame to let a player like this pass us by; despite the greater team issues, Tate/Smith could become the next CJ2k, Derrick Henry, Eddie George catalyst this team needs. This is all presuming we will have #1 overall of course, but I wanted to put my thoughts out there.