re: How are the defenses supposed to be in the SEC this year?

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I would say 8/11.

Rudy Ford, Mon Adams and Carl Lawson were starters that left.

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True. But Nick Ruffin and Stephen Roberts have enough starts between them that even though we're "losing a starter" it's still not exactly wrong to say we're also "returning a starter" at Ford's spot.... not like there's some giant unknown question mark or hole at the position.

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And both played great all last season.

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ehhhh

I can remember too many times that select curse words left my mouth as I watched Lawson miss sack opportuities

Folks forget that UF suffered KEY injuries after mid season and we played a lot of true frosh out of necessity....the bright side is that they played well and when we went to red stick to play the tigahs we had frosh playing a lot and playing well.

Our defense will be very good...maybe not quite as elite but very good. My main concern has been the offense...not the QB...but the lack of a good run game, which is how you win power football. Our OL gives me a lot of hope for 2017 and we have a very good stable of RBs....our special teams will be awesome as we return punter and kicker who are elite.
Special teams often get overlooked and shouldn't be...our punter can flip field position with his 48 yd avg.

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We've arguably got the best defensive coordinator in the country

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Georgia returns 10/11 starters on defense. The only starter we lost was Maurice smith, the grad transfer from Alabama. A couple of backups left too.

Tier 1
Alabama: lost most of the front 7, Saban and recruiting keep the Tide on top
Auburn: top 10 D last year, return the core D unit
LSU: avg unit by LSU standards IMO, still top 15 nationally
Georgia: think Kirby has them turn the corner in year 2

Tier 2
Florida: Muschamps D is gone and recruiting has been down. Balanced by the O being more productive this year IMO

Tier 3
Tennessee: 52nd in S&P last year, talent is avg, but injury luck regresses to the mean
South Carolina: talent still not there, solely based on faith in Muschamp
A&M: S&P rank was 36, but lost some contributors. Chavis keeps them moderately respectable
Vanderbilt: avg unit, some decent pieces

Tier 4
Mississippi State: DL should be solid, as for the rest?
Kentucky: some hope it comes together this year
Ole Miss: a few pieces mixed in, but lack of depth and overall morass will catch up
Missouri: improved offense might help D
Arkansas: gotta recruit and don't see the player development he was known for at UW

Meh it's reasonable and you know it

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I expect South Carolina to be much improved. Muschamp is stooge in some ways, but the dude can coach a defense. Year 2 they'll be better and maybe the best in the East, if they can develop some talent.

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I expect more of what Muschamp did last year which was mask some pretty blatant talent gaps that we have. Our DL was terrible, won't be much better but should be improved. Our Offense will hopefully keep them off the field and the secondary made up for lack of pass rush up until the UF game last year then the wheels fell off.

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We return 8 full-time starters from 2016. 9 positions return starters.... there are more than 9 with "starting experience" though. Either way, it's a better defense than LSU

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Negative ghostrider

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Both were kind of disappointments until last season.

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I don't know....Mon Adams I agree, but Lawson was pretty much lights out when he was healthy in his underclassmen years. Though, granted, that wasn't a lot. We were lost defensively without him most of the time.