I love the early signing's do not get me wrong, but the two positions I feel we are weakest at and were out problem last year have gone un signed and now it's looking like we will have to wait for the draft.. Those positions are Wideout and Cornerback. Before you scream these are two positions no one can say we are good at. Our wideouts while young do not scare anyone. Our Cornerback are plain weak as a group. Now we let Goodman go who was one of the better corners. The key freeagents at both positions are gone already and the second teer are there, so no impact players left for us to grab. Maybe Harrison? but hes lost a step and want's a big contract. So now were in the draft hunt without a top 10 pick. Looking to fill starter roles on the defense and offense the best players will be gone before us and we also have an offensive line position to shore up! So we draft a 2,3,4 rounder and ask them to start? Look at how Ginn has done 3 years and were still waiting. So lets get rookies and wait again!? I understand you build from the draft, I understand this isn't an overnight thing but there were plenty of choices early on and we just whiffed by them. it's not all doom and gloom just wish we would have made some moves for these positions.
As far as Corners go Leigh Bodden, Ron Bartell, Bryant Mcfadden, Philip Buchanon haven't signed as of yet and for WR neither have Coles and Nate Washington although Nate seems to be going to the Lions. The Lions?? They should be called "Wide Receiver U"
Bartell or McFadden would be great additions in my opinion to this team. I haven't heard though that we have looked at either of them.
You draft a player expecting them to start. Ted Ginn Jr was doing well at the end of the year. The thing with Ted Ginn Jr is he has not had an offense to get use to or a quarterback. His rookie year we went 1-15 and he had 3 different qb's. Now this year he had a new qb and a new offense to learn. You could see by the end of the year he was starting to get use to the offense and starting to build chemisty with Ted Ginn Jr he will be good this season.
Regardless, the thread starters point stands. CB and WR are legit deficiencies on our team. The argument that we could seriously use a seasoned and reliable VET at the WR spot is no less valid because we are all HOPING Ginn realizes his potential this year. I don't think the thread deserves 1 star because of that. We started with a flurry right before FA and while we did good in resigning some talent that was already here along with the very good move of adding a safety, I think it's fair to assume that we all expected a couple more holes filled before draft day. Everyone needs to realize that we may still address some positions and that the reason we've idled at this point is probably because our FO smartly is not willing to overspend for players. However, I don't see any reason that some fans can't be somewhat dissapointed and uneasy that we haven't filled more holes at this point. I think we all are.
Well, this is not the prettiest list of options for Flanker and Cornerback but: 1. Wr, Consider we will be seeing Greg C out on the field again this season and.. Ernest Wilford...should have another shot at breaking into the starting line up, we paid him, we may as well try to recycle him, we really do not have much to lose in doing so, they managed to turn Matt Roth into a quality SOLB from a disappointing defensive end. 2. Cornerback...Jason Allen...perhaps he has finally found his position for us, he always has had the physical talent, he just was looking for a slot to get some playing time in, the departure of Andre' Goodman will give him that chance. A free agent would be splashy, however we are still rebuilding and may have some answers on our roster already, the only way we can find out if they are answers is to allow them playing time. And as for Wr, we did manage to find D Bess last season, I'm confident we can find a different ready to contribute Wr if we must have one.
I said this last year. I think Allen is just a bad practice player. When he got into a game, he didn't do that bad. Some players just play much better in games then practice.
I'm sure we all are a bit...hesitant..to put much stock into Jason Allen playing well for us though, if we went back one year to this exact time, JA as a starting Safety was a foregone conclusion and it just never happened. I agree though, he has tons of potential, he should have more playing time.
I'm slightly dissapointed we werent aggresive in getting at least one big name. I thought that big name was for sure going to be Jason Brown, but he is now a Ram. I was very happy though in how we retained most of our key F/A such as Crowder, Bell and Carey. I am very dissapointed we let Goodman walk though, he was our best corner late in the season last year.
Too much is made of us 'not making a splash in FA'....we didn't make a big splash in FA last year, save for perhaps Smiley, but that was out of sheer desperation along the OL. This regime doesn't believe in building the team thru FA and it's obvious we aren't close enough to being a top team that one or two big signings puts us in the next level... But as I've said before, if we had signed Andrews/Gross instead of Carey, Scott/Lewis instead of Crowder, Atogwe instead of Bell, Hill instead of Wilson...would we really be that much better ?? I think not... We got the big names that were available in FA. Now, CB is certainly a hole that still has to be filled. I'd love to see Bartel here, he would certainly be an upgrade to Goody and is younger. McFadden would be a better player and Bodden would be more of an even swap. However, FA isn't over with yet and there's still the draft...so lets not get into the "sky is falling" routine just yet...
Wilford and Jason Allen!?!?!? Not pretty, indeed! If they are the answer, I don't wanna know the question.
I told you it was unpretty... I could see both making an impact positively this season, Allen needs playing time, Wilford needs his head screwed on straight.
Jason Allen is the Derek Hagan of our defense. He straight up sucks. If he wasn't a first-rounder, he woulda been cut 2 years ago. He doesn't need more time. 2009 will be his fourth year in the NFL. How much more time shall we give him to develop?
Difference between Hagan and Allen is, Hagan had a chance to play, Allen when he had that chance he did much better then Hagan ever did..the 8 games he played in 07 he did a good job...
Jason Allen's play seems to be a result of a couple of things. First the guy does not seem to be very intelligent and plays from instinct instead of smarts. He is athletic and can make plays but he has been moved around so much from Saban (safety) to Cam (corner then back to safety) to the present regime (corner and saftey). They all see talent but have not been able to find where he belongs. He just may be this regimes dark horse at Corner, we shall see. If he is given the chance to play more and does not end up producing he should be cut. He did improve this last year and I would like to see him play corner this coming year.
If Sparano can revive Allen's career (which I think he can), it'll be a major accomplishment. Turning your draft picks into something is key in the NFL. Also I do think Allen would be just fine a starter. The CB position is so heavily factored by the pass rush it's ridiculous.
Maybe he can revive Allen's career. Having said that, relying on J. Allen to all of a sudden "get it" would be a very poor plan of action and one I just can't see this group taking. I have to believe we bring in one of the remaining CB FA's.
He was never that bad though last year. Against Moss our pass rush was miserable and leaving him in coverage one-on-one was a recipe for disaster. Even then he got beat because Moss was Moss. Will Allen was completely owned by Larry Fitzgerald so it's not that surprising that it'll happen. Otherwise I never noticed Allen being a problem on the field. Nate Jones is a capable dime back at least so we're fine there. We need two players to step up and then there's a fifth backup guy we need.
Again it seems alot of you agree with the sentiment of this thread to bash the thread and give me low stars because of my view is pretty harsh to say the least. However since in reality stars mean nothing I can feel safe in my mind that I spoke what I feel. This year we will play a TOUGH schedule against passing teams, I guess some of you are happy getting a 3/4 rounder in there to compete an possibly win against the likes of these creamballs? Im tired of living an hoping based on potential. Get the man. Pay the man. and than we can begin talking about our TEAM as contenders.
I didn't even rate it but I'll tell you why it should be low. Have you checked the date? It's extremely early and it was said that we'd probably wait out until later to add a number of left over free agents plus we have the draft to look forward to. You would have rather given 5/25 to Goodman who close to his payday had one great second half? That's terrible mismanagement. At least this way we'll always have cap flexibility by only spending to keep integral guys. Management has a plan. They saw that Carey was valuable so they kept him, Goodman they didn't see as valuable to us. Paying 5m a year to a 31 year old, #2 CB who is fairly small and has a limited record of high success is ridiculous. As for WR there a large number of veterans available and other than Houshmanzadeh who else is a #1 because I can't see him. We have 20m in cap room with Holliday cut, so you have to figure 6m or so goes to the draft. I expect a - ILB - T - CB - WR to still be signed with that 14m in room. Also why load up on contracts for this year when we're not guaranteed to be Super Bowl contenders. Why overspend on mediocre players.
Dorf i can understand where your comming from, but this FO doesn't believe in paying for what you did yesterday. THey are surely looking at lots of possible FA, but they will much rather sign their guy than just a big name guy. You thought we did nothing to enhance our wideout corp. Fair enough. We didn't. But just remember the other side. No one and I really mean know one outside of this site thought our wideouts would do anything last year. and guess what, they did pretty good. Same with our backfield on d. Going into last season they looked weak and mediocre at best. Well guess what, after the ripping they took against Zona, they played really well. And i don't want to hear the excuse well our schedule is harder this year. Guess what, that group, which is now without goodman, played darn well against some very good passing attacks, including shutting down Denver, New England (once), San Diego. Don't think because a player is drafted in the second or third round they can't start immediatley, just look at last draft. Davone Bess, Carpenter, Thomas until injury, Merling, Langford were all out of the second round or higher and played really good for us. We have three picks to find starters in the first two rounds. This FO will find guys who play their style at the positions they need to fill and it won't seem that bad. Yes signing some big name FA for what tehy did in their previous years makes you dream of possibilities and feel safe and that hte player is "proven" but it doesn't always work out either, sometimes a draft pick who fits your system is better for the team both in the short term and long term, you and I as fans just don't feel as safe until we see it happen on gamedays. My best example of this is Davone Bess vs Wilford. Both wideouts, both from different avenues. No question who was better for our team. The undrafted no name player.
Brother Keep the faith. FA period is not over yet, and like you said we have the draft. The more we fill the other positions the more likely hood we will concentrate on these two early in the draft. Along with linebacker, Dline and Oline depth.
