Was there a worse offseason than 2013?

Heck, I was angry when Philbin was being mentioned as a HC candidate in the Autumn of 2011. I never even wanted him interviewed, and you won't hear me defending him. I think that he and his staff screwed up a lot of guys who could have been better. But, what was done was done with those two, I think.

 

The 1995 draft was an outright disaster. All time horrible. Billy Milner makes Dion Jordan look like a smart draft pick. He was a reach in what in retrospect was a really weak draft. Same for Andrew Green in the second round. Shula was trying to build up the OL for the end of Marino's career. The thought process was good, but the execution was abysmal.

As for the veterans, I was actually excited about a lot of the moves at the time. A lot of people knock the team for supplanting Keith Jackson with Eric Green, but Jackson wasn't the same player after we let him go. I think there were medical concerns. Eric Green had been a terrific player with Neil O'Donnel throwing him passes in Pittsburgh, while surrounded by guys most fans today have never heard of. Having Marino throw to him, while we had Fryar and McDuffie on the outside seemed like a wonderful idea. But he got fat, didn't click with Dan, and it was over after one year.

Gary Clark was a great player at the very end of his career, and had easily his worst season. Randall Hill we had of course drafted in 91, and then turned around and traded him to the Cardinals for the first rounder that became Troy Vincent the next year. Whats interesting is that both Clark and Hill had been Arizona's best and third best WRs the year before, and we were asking them to be our #3 & 4 options at the position. It seemed like an awesome thing to me at the time.

In the end though, that 1995 team began with a 52-14 win over the Jets that wasn't actually that close, started 4-0, before losing three heartbreaking tight games in a row while Marino was hurt. They were actually really close to starting the season 9-0, and did go 9-5 with Dan on the field. Win two of those, and they go from a third place finish and a WC game in Buffalo, to division winners, and maybe a first round bye, and who knows how history turns out. Maybe Shula isn't retired after the season, and the 92-95+ years are looked at as a great period in franchise history.

 

BTW, this thread has turned into something awesome. Talking about a football offseason from 20 years ago is so deep in my wheelhouse that its pure joy

 

Yes, I remember thinking at the time we were one player away and that player was Deon Sanders. I am still convinced today that if deon had signed with us instead of the 49ers that year we would have been sb Champs. J. B. Brown was terrible, absolutely horrendous, you put deon on the other side of Troy Vincent and that's two shut down corners. The other parts of the team were good the secondary was the weak link.

Also I was one of the main critics of the eric green move. Keith Jackson was easily the best pass catching tight end Miami has ever had and we let him go to pick up a glorified offensive lineman in Eric Green.

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Deion actually signed with the 49ers the year prior, in 1994, when SF won the Super Bowl. That was the year that they were paying a lot of veterans under the table to build up a super team. They were later slapped on the wrist when it became public and the League swept it under the rug, just like they did with the Broncos a few years later (Shanahan must have decided that it worked once, why not try again). You could certainly argue that the Fins should have been the team who played the 49ers in that SB, as we were up big in the Div round at San Diego before blowing it in the second half. I don't think that we would have won that game though, regardless. That was one of the most dominant (illegitimate) teams I've ever seen.

The following offseason, Deion signed with Dallas, they won the SB that year, and he played with them through 1999, when he was wearing down. As I remember, he did so in part because they promised that he would get the chance to play WR, which he did a lot in 1996. Were we a finalist for him that offseason? I don't remember.

 

You are right he signed with the 49ers in 94 but he was also a free agent in 95 and signed with Dallas. If we would have gotten him either in 94 or 95 I am convinced we would have at least gotten to the super bowl. Deon was just that dominant back then and we were just one great player away our teams were pretty good in 94-95. J.B. Brown was easily the worst starter on the team. Having deon on one side and troy Vincent on the other would have been a nightmare for opposing offenses.

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I'm not so sure. The Bills were pretty damn dominate during those years.

 

They were through 93, for sure, but not really after that. They faded during Marv Levy and Jim Kelly's final seasons, then in the late 90s, Wade Phillips got them to overachieve and be a tough out, but really, once their Super Bowl run ended, they haven't had a single great year. Sadly, we haven't really either.

 

In '95 they won the division. And from '94-
'99 they made it to the playoffs 4 times. They weren't as good as those 1990-1993 teams, but they were still really good.