Man, the 49ers lucked out that they got Chris Boreland in the 3rd round to do an admirable job when all-Pro linebacker Patrick Willis was hurt. They could even handle Willis’s retirement because of finding him.
Only Boreland has decided to retire after one year, concerned about head injuries. Wowzers.
As someone posted on Twitter, Borland is closer in age to someone playing Pop Warner football than he is to Peyton Manning. That’s got to be a concern for the league.
Good on him, you have to protect your health. Still being a Niner fan is gonna suck @ss this year.
How do you figure? The Browns have one of the best group of corners in the league. Haden is a legit #1, if they retain Skrine he’s a very underrated #2, K’Wan Willians or however you spell it had a remarkably great rookie season, and they just drafted a top athletic corner prospect at #9 overall. The 5th and 6th corners would also probably be 3rd and 4th corners on most teams.
It doesn’t look like they’re aiming to retain Skrine, so Browner might be a replacement, but the Browns are the least team in the league you’d call “desperate” for corners.
Good. I hope this puts the fear of God into them, for everyone’s sake.
Haden is a safety no? Also they’re losing Skrine that’s happening, and I also thought they were losing someone else who started for them too (Although I don’t know who so I could have just made that up).
Now that you said it they probably aren’t as desperate as I thought they were…well boo…
Considering that Skrine has been a Jet for a week now, it seems unlikely he’ll be helping out the Browns this year…
And Browner is a Saint now.
With a name like that, Cleveland should have offered more!
What fresh hell can this be? What’s gone and what’s past help should be past grief.
Damn it. Yeah, why would you pay your own guy who you’ve developed, who has improved significantly every year in the league, who is entering his prime, and who knows your defensive scheme, and has elite speed, when you can pay more to someone over the hill looking for their last big paycheck as they decline?
So I was at least in the ballpark with the “needs corners” thing
Vince Wilfork will be joining Jadeveon Clowney and J.J. Watt on the Texans’ defensive line for the next two seasons. I like it.
Yes, after losing Skrine the Browns needed a corner. Haden is a stud, but Gilbert sucks.
A frustratingly common pattern for the past decade. And I’m bummed about losing Rolle.
Steve Wisniewski and Samson Satele are two Centers still available on the FA market. Would love for the Bears to upgrade Garza in the coming weeks, either through FA or the draft. Wisniewski is the ideal candidate here for a lot of reasons, but mostly I want a guy that can solidify the inside of the line right away. Getting a NFL ready rookie would be great, but those are rare at any position and particularly at Center. A rookie is almost certainly waiting a year which means another train wreck with Garza getting pushed back into Cutler’s kitchen.
Wisniewski is the best available FA at the position and could command somewhere from $5-8M year which is just too much for the Bears to take on. The fact that he’s not signed anywhere yet tells me two things, the market for Centers is soft and Wisniewski is looking to get paid. Maybe the Bears get lucky and he decides to come to town at a discount.
Satele kind of sucks and seems like a bit of a headache for teams, can’t seem to stay put on one team, but I think he’d be an upgrade over Garza or De La Puenta. I know the Bears have been in touch with both, seems like they might agree with me.
Some big Bears news. Today we signed 2 5-technique DEs which cements what was probably the weakest position on the defense in light of the switch to the 3-4.
They locked up Jarvis Jenkins, a 2nd rounder in 2011 with the Redskins. Solid run defender and should be a decent anchor, though he won’t add much pass rush. Terms not disclosed yet, but I’m assuming a very cheap 1-year prove it deal which is excellent for the Bears.
The also locked up Ray McDonald who’s a much better player, close to a great player who appears to be a horrible human being. Fangio knew him in San Fran which is the only thing that gives me solace here, hopefully Fangio wouldn’t seek him out if he thought he was a total fucking scumbag and this is a signal that he’s redeemable. Worth noting that all criminal charges were dropped and McDonald is suing the original accuser, but I assume that’s a PR tactic. He might not be technically guilty of anything but I’m pretty sure he’s a dirtbag (the accuser may also be a scumbag, but that’s neither here nor there).
Anyways, on the football field McDonald is a huge addition assuming he’s not terribly rusty. Also he’ll probably come pretty cheap relatively as a result of the off-the-field problems. With a front 3 of McDonald, Ferguson and Jenkins we actually should be able to play the run and keep the edge rushers clean.
So far I like what Pace has done this preseason, overspent on McPhee I think, but the focus on defense is the right move. Frees us up to truly go BPA in the draft.
Bears just went one step further agreeing to terms with Mason Foster to play ILB. Mason Foster and the Bears have been dickering for weeks now and the deal finally got done. Terms haven’t been disclosed, so we will see what took so long to hammer out, but the defense keeps getting incrementally better to the point where we might actually be competitive on that side of the ball.
It will be interesting to see what all these signings mean for Bostic, Greene, McClellin, Bass and Jones. I’m guessing guys like DeDe Lattimore, Austen Lane and Cornelius Washington are going to be among the guys cut in camp,
If I had to project I’d say the starting front 7 are: McDonald, Ratliff, Jenkins, McPhee, Foster, Jones and Houston. Ferguson, Sutton, Bostic, Bass and Young will get a lot of rotation reps. Jerad Allen, Shea McClellin Cornelius Washington and Khaseem Greene feel like the odd men out, but we’ll see.
I think Allen is going to be tough to move or cut. Willie Young seems like a bad fit for a 3-4. Washington is one of the few DEs who might be able to hulk up and play the 5-tech. McClellin is a huge bust but he might project better as a 3-4 OLB than Bass or Young. Should be a very interesting camp and I think we need to find a couple more rotational 3-4 DEs in the draft. Then again, maybe the Bears will mix it up and use Young and Allen in some 4-3 sub packages.
The trade I, as a Browns fan, wish would have happened.
Jimmy Haslam supposedly wanted to trade the entire Browns franchise for the Tennessee Titans. Everyone involved is dismissing the rumor as nonsense, but what would you expect?
If such a thing happened, I wonder if the owners could take their entire staff and roster with them. For that matter, how about the team name and logo?
It’s happened before. Carroll Rosenbloom traded the Baltimore Colts to Bob Irsay for the Los Angeles Rams in 1972.