Here is for discussion of the moves your team makes, the moves you wish they’d make, and the one’s you wish you could undo. Like, say, the Falcons releasing Crumpler. WTF was that about?
Speaking of the Falcons, as a Giants fan I was interested in this rumor:
I’d personally like this deal despite Hall’s attitude issues. Hell, I respect Hall blasting Petrino for running away with his tail between his legs, but I’m not thrilled with that meltdown he had against Carolina. Even still, the upside is enticing.
First off he’s a speed demon, which is always nice in a corner. I loves me some Aaron Ross, but do the Giants really need to be spending two consecutive first rounders on DBs? Well, if it lands you a nice tandem, I’d say it’s worth it. And Ross & Hall would surely qualify. What else is Reese going to do with that pick, draft another DE?
As I detailed in another thread, the Giants don’t really have too many pressing needs, but the secondary is far and away the shakiest group. Gibril is a free agent, the linked article suggest they are getting ready to cut R.W. McQuarters, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see the venerable Sam Madison retire.
Given that, I’d like to see that top pick used in the secondary. And since Hall is close enough to a proven commodity, a straight-up trade sounds like a no-brainer to me.
I don’t watch the Falcons much but I get the impression Hall makes a lot of bad reads and gives up a lot of plays. Combine that with being a head case and I’d say he’s overrated.
The Browns resigned Jamal Lewis today, which I’m okayish with. He’s getting up there in milage, but he’s only 28. It was a 2 year deal with an option for a third… details aren’t in yet but I doubt it’s outrageous money.
Most of the year I thought he wasn’t a good fit for the blocking scheme - people see him as a Jerome Bettis type but that’s only because they’re looking at his size. Jerome was a big guy with agility but not much speed. Jamal is a big guy with speed but not much agility. He’s not a great short yardage back for his size and he misses a lot of holes with a short window because he hesistates too much and doesn’t have good short area acceleration. Still, he racked up over 1300 rushing yards despite missing 2 games and being injured in others… he averaged over 130 yards per game after Thanksgiving. What they need to do is work Jerome Harrison into the game more - he might be the best running back that no one’s ever heard of.
They’re working on a 3 year contract with Derrick Anderson. He originally wanted 5-7, they wanted 3… and the organization is at least claiming they’re close on free. The hardcore fan base has totally turned on Anderson after he pretty much single handedly blew locking up a playoff slot - you’ve never seen a 24 year old quarterback who threw for 29 touchdowns in his first year as a starter so unwanted by his fanbase. He’s keeping The Golden Boy off the field.
Not a Browns fan, but that was my exact feeling when I saw the news on the crawl. I’m frankly surprised that he’s only 28; he feels old, if you know what I mean.
You might be right about Hall. In all honesty I haven’t seen any of his games so I don’t really know. He did make two probowls, though, and he impressed me in the probowl skills competitions, so I assume there is some potential there.
As for Derrick Anderson: Really? What happened? Could you elaborate? I was a bit preoccupied with the Giants at the end of the season…
In short, Charlie Frye snuck into Paul Brown Stadium, knocked out D.A., and put on his uniform for the second-to-last game of the season (which, if won, would have guaranteed a playoff spot).
That would be a fantastic deal for the Giants, especially in terms of matching up with divisional opponents. I think the Falcons could probably get more for Hall if they wanted to, though.
The Cardinals cut three players to make room to restructure Larry Fitzgerald’s contract.
Very good move. Boldin and Fitzgerald are the best receiving duo in the NFL.
Not sure what the Cards should do about Edge. Running backs do not age well.
I think Matt Leinart should be the starter next year. We need to find out if he is Peyton Manning or Ryan Leaf. Warner has maybe one year left, but he is injury prone and fumbles too much.
The Giants and Hall are what I came in to mention too, although as a Cowboy fan my enthusiasm is less than yours, Ellis.
The Boys are letting Flozell Adams test free agent waters, although it likely is just so a fair market value can be established. I imagine we’ll have for for at least one more year. The same better hold true for Marion Barber.
Zach Thomas is lookin’ around. It’d be nice to have him back home but we’ve bigger needs in the secondary.
Bah. First-year starter has one bad game and all of a sudden he’s the goat. He had a poor game, sure, but his receivers seemed to take the day off too.
I doubt Hall is going anywhere. He’s brilliant in man coverage (though not so good playing zone) and the Falcons know whoever they draft with that pick likely won’t be half as good as Hall. Plus, they play in a division where every opponent has one really good receiver (Steve Smith, Marques Colston, Joey Galloway) and a bunch of weak ones. He’s perfect for his role - stick him on the other team’s big threat and let your safeties worry about the other side of the field.
I can already tell you who Leinart is. He’s Matt Hasselbeck. He’ll take a while to stop throwing silly picks, but when he figures it out he’ll be a top-10 guy year in and year out. He’ll never be MVP, but you’ll not have to worry about finding a new QB every three years.
The Panthers cut DeShawn Foster on Thursday. Seems they think his fumble-prone, oft-injured schtick was getting old. So, it appears DeAngelo Williams will be the started for the Cats next year.
He’s got a lot of milage, he came into the league at 20 or 21. But he looked healthier this year than he has in the previous 2 years - he had some offseason surgery to remove bone spurs and it helped him.
I was pretty down on him in the first half of the year - Cleveland’s line is a mobile line that effectively blocks on the second level, but Lewis with his slow acceleration and sometimes slow decision making seems to be better suited to a mammoth drive blocking line that opens big, designated holes and lets him run through them at full speed and handle the second level guys himself.
But part of that is that the passing game was very successful and the defense was atrocious - forcing the Browns to score all game and gave him limited running opportunities. Later in the year when the passing game slowed down and the defense started to improve he was much more productive - in his last 6 games he ran for 697 yards for almost 4.8 yards a carry so I’ve warmed up to him somewhat. He had a really productive year - if you project his per-game average to the two games he missed due to injury, he’d have ran for just under 1500 yards… on a team with a bad defense that rarely had the opportunity to run out the clock.
At least the contract length is reasonable - 2 years is probably what’s left of his productive time. I’d feel better about the situation if they start working Jerome Harrison into the game - he’s one of those players where almost every time you see him play he does remarkably well, and then inexplicably you almost never see him play.
I haven’t seen Hall that much either, I’m mostly going by what I’ve read on threads where the idea of trading for Hall has been raised on a Browns board. There were some people who seemed pretty knowledgable about him. The consensus was that he was very physically talented but often got burned by mental mistakes, biting on fakes, etc.
He threw a whole lot of picks at backbreaking times in a game that would’ve locked up a playoff spot. Usually the QB takes too much blame for a loss, but he pretty much single handedly blew that game.
The game plan was strange, though - there were 40+ mph wind that day and Cinci only let Palmer throw 20 times or so and he looked pretty crappy doing it. So why the Browns tried to pass, pass, pass under those conditions when Lewis had ripped up Cincinatti for 216 yards earlier in the year is mysterious.
That wasn’t the only instance, though. Fan displeasure was growing. Derek tends to do some things that are so obviously bad that it pisses off fans. He reads deep coverage very well, but sometimes entirely misses the underneath coverage, and he’ll throw a ball directly into a linebacker’s chest. He’s also got wildly inconsistent and horrible accuracy on the most basic short throws - he’ll sometimes overthrow a back that’s 7 yards away from him on a flare route by throwing it 3 yards above his head.
And then there was the crowd that was saying “Yeah, so Anderson’s throwing 3 or 4 touchdowns a game… give The Golden Boy this offense line and these receivers, and he’d be throwing for 8 per game…”
Before the Cinci game, most were generally supportive of Anderson with a minority of loud critics, but it flipped after that game. But this is only amongst hardcore fans - the ones that post on message boards - I don’t live in Cleveland anymore so I don’t have a sense of what the average fan feels.
My personal feeling on the issue is that someone wants to overpay in a trade for Anderson, I’d take it (mostly because the defense really needs help). But if not, sign Anderson to a 2-3 year contract. Having two good QBs is not some horrible thing that must be avoided.
They resolved the 3rd-4th-5th draft position ties.
Atlanta drafts #3, Raiders #4, Chiefs #5.
From John Clayton:
That’s not true, is it? Under that scenario the Chiefs had no shot at the #3 pick. Unless they did some sort of 3 way drawing to determine which two flipped first… in which case why not use that same 3 way drawing to determine draft order? Maybe the rulebook required a “coin flip” specifically.
I think they are a waaaaay better team than the 3-13 record,any of ya’ll think so that aren’t rammily biased?
Glad they kept Linehan for a coach.I’m excited about the upcoming season.
Definitely too much talent there for them not to improve.
In fact, as long as they can keep one or two starting linemen healthy all year they should certainly be no worse than 8-8. No team could have survived the O-line injuries the Rams did last year.
The fans are right to not like Anderson, because his receivers bail him out, and he isn’t very good. His stats were completely padded against my team (Bengals) in that first meeting.
Jamal actually had a better year than I thought he would. Last year’s performance had me thinking he was washed up, but he did OK.
I did particularly relish ruining your run at the playoffs in that second Browns/Bengals game, btw.
No worries, though, we had a horribly injured/suspended/chaotic year. We’ll be back in 2008. We gotta fix that defense though. It sucks. Well, that and the running game. Rudi/Perry being hurt and/or ineffective last year was painful to watch.
I think Chad Johnson and TJ Houshmanzadeh would argue that statement, even if Chad is a crybaby headcase mini-version of Terrel Owens. Hell, you could make a case for Moss/Welker here too.