Cam was a mixed bag as a leader and a locker room presence.
Apropos of nothing, I’m at the Big Ten Tournament in Lucas Oil Stadium and in between games I’m noticing how sad the Colts ring of honor is.
Bob Irsay
Bill Polian (98-11)
Tony Dungy (02-08)
Ted Marchibroda (75-79, 92-95)
Bill Brooks (86-92)
Chris Hinton (83-89)
Jim Harbaugh (94-97)
Marvin Harrison (96-08)
Edgerrin James (99-05)
Marshall Faulk (94-98)
Jeff Saturday (99-11)
So it seems like they mostly excluded Baltimore players and they don’t have Manning up there yet, at least not on the ring itself, so it’s not quite as weak as it looks but man that’s rough.
4 front office/coaches and frankly it’s not that stellar a list. Most of the players, while talented, weren’t even on the team for more than 5 seasons. Two of which had their career peak on the Rams, not the Colts. And Jim Harbaugh, yikes.
Anyways. That’s my shower thought for the afternoon.
Looks like the Baltimore Colts players are honored in the Ravens’ Ring of Honor.
Cleveland’s includes figures from the old team, which is current Baltimore. Current Baltimore includes figures from old Baltimore which is now Indianapolis.
I guess they’re just counting co-location for those teams? That’s surely not the case for Tennessee which has old Oilers in its Ring.
Part of the agreement that Art Modell (former Browns/Ravens owner) made with the league and the city of Cleveland, when he got approval to move to Baltimore, was that he left behind the Browns’ name and history. Thus, when Cleveland got an expansion team a few years later, they were considered to be a continuation of the Browns franchise, while the Ravens were considered to be a “new” franchise when they started play in Baltimore (though, they obviously kept their under-contract players, and front office staff, when they relocated). Hence, older Browns players being recognized in Cleveland, but not Baltimore.
As far as I know, the Browns are the only case where this discontinuity is formally recognized by the league and the teams. The Titans/Oilers, and the Colts, are historically recognized as being from both cities, and players from Houston and Baltimore are considered to be part of the Tennessee and Indianapolis teams’ histories, from a stats standpoint.
That said, if the Colts don’t currently “recognize” any old Baltimore Colts in their Ring of Honor, I suspect that that’s a decision made by their ownership/management, rather than an NFL rule, as there was a lot of bitterness surrounding that move, on both the parts of the fans in Baltimore, and the Irsay family (which owned, and still owns, the team).
Gotta figure that Reggie Wayne will end up there eventually.
And Drew Brees retires. Good. Excellent career, but it’s time to hang ‘em up
Coming back from a deflated lung and 11 cracked ribs is impressive but definitely time to call it a career. And a pretty good one, too.
A bit of a shame Brees didn’t get a shot at more Super Bowls but Marino never even won one, so there’s that.
Crazy town. The money isn’t real but it’s still a bonkers contract for this guy.
The Packers re-signed free agent RB Aaron Jones, to a 4-year, $48 million contract, a day before Jones would have been able to negotiate with other teams
His agent, Drew Rosenhaus, indicated that Jones likely would have been able to get more money from other teams, but was willing to give the Packers a hometown discount to remain with the team.
His YPC, at 5.2 for his career, is really good, but he’s only barely rushed for more than 1,000 yards the last two years after barely getting 1,000 yards rushing his first two years combined. Last year was his first Pro Bowl. At $12 million per year, his contract puts him tied for sixth-highest paid RB, and not all that far behind Christian McCaffrey, at $16 million per year, who is a legitimate All-Pro. I’m not an expert in the NFL marketplace, but that doesn’t really seem like much of a “hometown discount” over his actual market value to me.
Honestly, when the Packers didn’t put a franchise tag on Jones, I figured he was gone. I agree with you, @gdave – he’s been very effective for the Packers, but they are absolutely a pass-first team with Rodgers, which is probably part of why Jones’s yardage totals haven’t been big. Also, they have another good running back in Jamaal Williams, plus a 2020 rookie, A.J. Dillon, who looked good in limited action.
With all of that, I figured that the Packers were willing to let Jones walk, rather than pay him.
The other thing is that RBs are good until they stop being good. They don’t last long. They are like the action figure you keep throwing into the street. Eventually they’ll break down and it isn’t always gradual. Ask the Rams how well that contract with Gurley worked out.
I don’t mind paying a running back good money if the running game is a big part of your offense and you have one of the best players at that position. But the multi-year deal is risky. I’m guessing the “discount”, if there is one, is because most teams probably don’t want to sign him longer than 2 years.
Aaron Jones will be 30 when his new contract expires, and that is the average age when a RB declines. So the math works out. But that doesn’t hold true for everyone; going back to Gurley, he was (I believe) only 24 when everything started falling apart for him, and that was only a year or so after being named the NFL Offensive Player of the Year. Things can go bad fast in that position.
Sad to say, but RBs just aren’t worth big contracts (or high draft picks) anymore. A generation ago they were routinely the #1 pick in the draft, but there are maybe two RBs in today’s NFL who are substantially better than a free agent replacement: Henry and Kamara. (A healthy Barkley or McCaffrey might move into that group. Elliott already looks like he might be finished.) What’s the last team to ride a RB to a Super Bowl championship?
But this is supposed to be a thread about QBs. How is Russell Wilson still not a Bear? 
To answer your question…
As I said upthread, the odds of Seattle trading him to the Bears – if they trade him at all – are microscopic. I’m just trolling my fellow (but less reality-minded) Bears fans.
I have no idea what the Bears are going to do this year but I’m pretty confident in saying that whatever their decision is for QB, it will be the wrong one.
I saw a headline this weekend that maybe Trubs coming back could happen after all and I just kind of shook my head.
I agree. Ask Indianapolis whether they’d repeat their trade for Trent Richardson.
It’s a tough situation. Getting a Wilson or a Watson would require the equivalent of multiple 1st round picks - enough of them for the other team to accept the deal which is enough to doom the team to mediocrity for a few years unless they have a stockpile of picks.
They could also hope there’s somebody waiting in the draft but that’s just rolling the dice again - they moved up for Trubisky after all.
The real ‘solution’ is they should have picked Mahomes or Watson instead of Trubisky when they had the chance. The price of a busted QB pick, which they’re in the middle of paying now, is several bad seasons.
As fans, we like to pretend that there’s always some kind of near magical solution that’ll ‘fix’ our team instantly. Usually, we just need to take our lumps and do better going forward. But since that doesn’t generate clicks (or satisfy fans), we instead kibbitz.
With Pace and Nagy on the hot seat Bears fans are braced for them to pull out every stop to make us a contender this year. But they won’t get Watson or Wilson, so they’ll trade future picks and renegotiate every contract they can to try to make that magic happen – and when it doesn’t, the next GM will have a much steeper hill to climb.
Pretty much could say the same thing about Washington. Gambling on Haskins was an awful mistake, now they’re stuck. Kyle Allen might be a serviceable QB, I’m not buying into Heinicke being the second coming of Kurt Warner.
And the ghost of the RG III trade will continue to haunt them if they want to go big.