Osweiler goes to the Texans, his coach’s former home. Elway may need to suit up again 
Texans pick up Lamar Miller too. 26/4 with 14 guaranteed. The article claims Miller took less money to come to Houston. Might’ve preferred Forte, but I think he’d have gone for more and Miller’s been impressive in the past.
On Osweiler…whew, the brain trust on Kirby had better be right. Not happy that Denver is seemingly saying, “Yeah, whatever. Take him. We don’t have a QB and we don’t care.”
I love the decisiveness of the decision though: no screwing around with Hackenburg, no standing pat with the QBs they have, no cheaping out with someone like Foles, and no kicking the tires on RG3. These two FA transactions are so very non-Texans. It’s refreshing to see the Texans making bold, decisive moves to win now, instead of screwing around and denying reality.
Makes the Draft a bit more interesting now for the Texans, with RB and QB taken care of.
Fuck the Browns. They let both Mack and Schwartz go. You can make a case for letting Mack go - his performance dropped off after breaking his leg, he’s on the wrong side of 30, and he was getting a big deal. But there’s no excuse for Scwhartz. He was one of the better right tackles in the league, just entering his prime, never missed a snap, no locker room problems. PFF had him as a top 3 RT. I don’t care if he got 12m a year on the open market. The Browns are letting what little talent they have go away without a fight. Why, so they can lead the league in cap space again? What the fuck are they thinking?
Any sort of excitement over landing Hue Jackson is gone. We get to be an expansion team again this year without all the draft picks. Fuck them.
They let Tashaun Gipson walk too. 4 starters gone on the first day of FA.
I’m not too broken up about losing Benjamin, or even Mack and Gipson necessarily. Schwartz I’m surprised about. All the talk was that they would rather let Mack walk so they could pay Schwartz.
Yeah, letting Schwartz go was an idiotic move. He’s a ton better than their current backup (Pasztor?), and was just hitting his prime. Bad move, I think. But what are you going to do with an owner like Haslam?
Weird offseason for the Bucs. I was pissed off about Lovie’s firing - the record wasn’t great, but the team was obviously headed in the right direction - especially because nobody was really going to sign Dirk Koetter to be a head coach after one good year. Still, Koetter did a tremendous job rebuilding the offense last year and presumably very little will change with him as head coach.
Didn’t lose anyone important in free agency (Doug Martin is locked up for five years, which I’m happy about even though you don’t really need to pay running backs in today’s NFL). But we haven’t signed anyone either. We did lose Logan Mankins to retirement, but he was overrated and JR Sweezy came in from Seattle for less money. I thought we were going to get Mitchell Swartz, though we’re actually pretty well set at both tackles.
The second the Broncos lost Osweiler I thought they might trade for Mike Glennon. He’s never going to be a star, but his rookie numbers were impressive and he should be starting somewhere. Apparently I’m not the only one who thinks so. The Broncos would be nuts to head into the season with RGIII as their starter.
In other news, half of my dynasty fantasy league players are now with Houston. I was really hoping to see Lamar Miller sign with Dallas (even if it meant rooting for the Cowboys) but the Texans were actually the 15th ranked rushing team last season, which isn’t as horrible as I thought. I might have to trade him to avoid having too many eggs in one basket, though (I also own DeAndre Hopkins and Brock Osweiler).
Much better news was Marvin Jones signing with Detroit as their new #1. There were just too many mouths to feed in Cincy, but he should put up huge numbers next year.
I think Osweiler is an average NFL QB who maxes out as an efficient QB. Think a younger Brian Hoyer. And, oddly enough, Hoyer had a higher passer rating, was better at passes beyond 20 yards, and had a better td/int ratio. I think $72 million and $37 guaranteed is way too much for that kind of QB.
I can see the “we’re winning free agency because we’re doing … things!” aspect of fandom, but I’d rather my franchise make smart decisions than just make decisions. I’m not sure Osweiler’s contract is a smart decision.
They won the Super Bowl with an so far over the hill, he’s actually in the valley 5 miles away- Manning, so I don’t know they really NEED a huge upgrade at QB. I doubt RGIII is the solution, and I like the idea of them trading for Lurch from the Bucs, but I think they’re smart not overpaying for average.
My thought on the Browns letting everyone walk is, who cares? They are so very far away from anything that could be remotely competitive, what difference does it make? At this point all the good free agents have signed. Their only hope is to hit a grand slam on draft day.
And suppose they do hit a grand slam on draft day: that’s 4-5 players on a roster of 53.
Well, that’s the thing - RGIII of the last 2-3 years wouldn’t even be an upgrade over last year’s Manning. All of the interceptions and injury risk, and none of the ball control to rest the defense. RGIII is the guy you sign if you have nothing to lose - Cleveland should be all over him.
For what it’s worth, Denver had an offer on the table to Osweiler that was very close to what Houston ultimately paid.
Attention hack sports journalists:
The Browns not cutting Manziel yet isn’t a story. If the league suspends him, the Browns get some bonus money back. If they wait till June, there are cap advantages. Everyone knows this. Some of you making a big exaggerated deal about this have previously reported the reasoning yourselves.
Find something useful to write about.
Other free agent news (forgive me if I’m repeating anything):
[ul]
[li]Jets sign Matt Forte, after rumored interested from the Packers. One can only hope he declines like most post-30 RBs.[/li][li]Saints sign Coby Fleener. Seems like a big upgrade from Ben Watson, at least in the pass-catching side of things.[/li][li]Mohamed Sanu to the Falcons. That’s two receivers lost from the Bengals - they’ve got some holes to fill there.[/li][li]Raiders sign CB Sean Smith away from the Chiefs. I don’t know much about him, but it’s always fun when rivals pick off each others players.[/li][li]Trade rumors swirling around Colin Kaepernick. One has to imagine the Broncos are taking a close look at him.[/li][/ul]
How do they get better for the future? By having good, young players on their roster growing together. You could say Mack going isn’t a big deal because he’ll be too old by the time they get anywhere, but having 5 quality starters on the offensive line who’ve worked together could’ve helped the development of other young players, most notably a QB.
Basically - Mack, Schwartz, Benjamin, and Gipson would represent an above-average draft for the Browns. They basically chose to give up that draft.
It’s just that many more holes that need to be filled before they go anywhere. I have no idea how you could think this is no big deal.
Long term, perhaps, but Watson had over 800 yards last season while Fleener didn’t even reach 500.
Indeed. But the entire Colts offense sucked eggs last season. The year before he had almost 800 and 8 TDs splitting time with Dwayne Allen. And he’s 8 years younger.
I’m looking forward to watching Danny Trevathan playing in a Bears uniform, he’s a good fit for that defense. Like the Massey signing as well. Neither are splashy, franchise changing players but both should be solid players for a few years.
Yeah, but there’s a reason the Colts kept Allen over Fleener despite the former’s chronic injury woes.
Don’t keep me in suspense
Fleener is totally useless as a blocker. And not a particularly good receiver.
Dwayne Allen was PFF’s 72nd rated TE out of 73 qualifying (Ed Dickson was the only one with a worse grade), with a -14.3 overall grade. Coby Fleener was PFF’s 19th rated TE, at +0.7.
Fleener’s run blocking grade was +1.4 and his pass blocking grade was +0.7.
Allen’s run blocking grade was -10.8 and his pass blocking grade was -0.9.
Fleener gave up 0 sacks, 0 hits, and 2 QB hurries, and had one penalty.
Allen gave up 2 sacks, 1 hit, and 0 hurries, and was called for 4 penalties.
Now, Allen was the better TE during the 2014 season, with better grades and stats. But Fleener had a good 2015, especially improving his blocking. Allen regressed mightily this past year, and could only get 109 yards receiving while Fleener had almost 5 times that amount. Allen didn’t have a drop, though, to Fleener’s 4.
Of course there are injury questions with Allen, and whether you believe he will be 2014 Allen or 2015 Allen. But with Fleener’s improvement this year, I think he’s the better TE. And, on a per-year salary basis, he seemingly was cheaper.