I'm not as confident as some that we're free of the Hawthorn yoke just yet. The whole point of their system is actually quite moneyball-ish in some ways; they have seemingly innumerable people who can play a particular role, and do it well without necessarily being flashy. That won't change overnight.
Losing Hodge and Mitchell, when it happens, will hurt, but then if they gain the other Mitchell and O'Meara can get fit, then you've gone some way to replacing that. Indeed, positionally, Gibson may prove as hard as any of them to replace and he probably doesn't have long to go either.
Where they fell down this year, ultimately, was the drop away in their hard edge. Their contested possession numbers do not lie. Maybe, just maybe, they lost a teeny bit of hunger too.
Either way, I'm just glad we'll see a premiership other than Hawthorn. I'm on Footscray for this year.