As someone who has seen Peppers play in person about 20 times in the last 4 years, all I can say is that I cannot figure that dude out. Physically, he is one of the most gifted football players I’ve ever seen. With his size and speed, he’d be an absolute monster if he played with any consistency. But, he doesn’t. He doesn’t just take an occasional play off, he takes entire games off. Yet he still got 14 sacks this year. He’s so frustrating to root for, because when he’s on, he makes the Panthers so much better. You just never know what to expect from him. He rarely speaks to the press, so you don’t get much of an idea what he’s all about. It doesn’t seem to be money. He turned down an offer after the season 2 years ago to be the highest paid defensive player in the league. The entire organization is very tight-lipped, so it’s hard to know what went wrong here. He didn’t seem to like Trgovac’s (the previous DC) system, and after the team adjusted to Meeks’ new system this year he seemed to flourish. But this time the Panthers said “no thanks” to a new deal. Probably economics, because $21 million is lot for any 1 player, especially if he isn’t busting his ass every game. But how do you give up on a player with his talent and skills when he’s 30? I’m sure they investigated possible sign and trade deals, but there were no takers because of his contract. So they let him walk with no compensation. For a team with a lot of holes and no 1st round pick, that’s a really, really poor job by Hurney (GM) and Fox.
As for the rest of the team, there are some bright spots:
Great running back duo in D. Williams and J. Stewart
Strong O-line, if everyone comes back from their injuries in good shape (initial reports indicate this is likely)
The team really seemed to pick it up defensively in the 2nd half of the season after they got used to Meeks’ “go after the ball” game
Steve Smith, though getting older, is still a great receiver
However, they have a lot of questions too:
Right now, it look slike Matt Moore and (gulp…) Jake Delhomme will compete for the starting QB slot. Moore showed some promise at the end of the year, but he traditionally has played poorly in the pre-season, which may open the door for another chance for Jake. I like Jake. He’s been really good for the Panthers. But it’s time to go. I see a nice soft landing spot for Mcnabb here…
How will they replace Peppers on the D-line? They drafted Everett Brown last year, and he showed a flash here and there, but he’s small. He may turn out OK, but it sure doesn’t look like it was worth trading away a first rounder for him.
Other than Smith, the WR corp is non-existent. Dwayne Jarret seemed to connect with Moore a little, but I wouldn’t count on him at all. They need a complimentary WR in a big way.
Fox is in lame duck status now. The owner told him he could come back for another year if he wanted. How’s that for an endorsement? Will he be auditioning for the Giants’ job all season? That may be a good thing or a bad thing.
Clemson’s Jocoby Ford ran a 4.28 40 time, tying for fastest run by a WR and 2nd all time. Guess the Raiders 1st round pick just got decided, Al may as well turn in his card now.
As an aside, I’ve heard that the NFL is considering inviting guys who are projected top 2nd rounders to the Draft too. The Draft is going to 3 days, with the first round on Thursday night, rounds 2nd and 3rd on Friday, and rounds 4 to 7 on Saturday. It gives the NFL more facetime, and will get guys like Tebow, McCoy, maybe Myron Rolle, in front of the cameras for the draftniks. I think they run a heckuva lot more risk of the “Oh look at that poor guy sitting there not getting drafted” scenario if they do the second round, but it makes good theater, and likely good ratings.
I also think the new schedule will facilitate more trades in the 2nd and 4th rounds, as teams have more time overnight to work out deals, to move up to grab their guys, or move down to fill more holes. This may be a boon for the Rams and Lions who may be able to grab more guys to fill their holes by trading down. Either way, it should be more interesting.
Also, I call dibs on whoring for Jared Veldheer and mocking whichever team reaches for Jason Pierre-Paul.
Bryant sounds like a problem waiting to happen, but skills are skills. If his Pro Day is awesome you can bet he’ll be a top 10 pick, and let’s face it, plenty of teams have had tons of success with head-case WRs. If there’s a position where you can be a clown and not drag down a team or hamstring your performance WR seems to be it.
Do you think the Packers will be targeting a WR? That seems like maybe the last position I’d expect them to draft in the 1st round. With the transition to the 3-4 still a work in progress and Kampman likely gone I’d be shocked if the Packers didn’t take a pass rusher who fits at either the DT/DE spot or the OLB spot.
30 is getting pretty old for a DE. Very few guys are Reggie White and Simeon Rice, I think a more realistic comparison is Javon Kearse and he fell off the cliff at age 30. I suspect Peppers will be good for 2 more years, but his contract is probably going to be effectively guaranteed for something like 4 years at least. And with a potential lockout in 2011 there’s a good chance you’d lose 1 of his prime years and be giving a guy who’s got motivation issues an entire year to get soft.
A motivated Peppers would be a boon for the Bears, but the combo of the lockout, the McCaskey’s penny-pinching ways and his age have essentially convinced me to root against his signing. There’s a chance his motivation issues will be cured on a new team, in a new city away from his hometown and with supposed master motivator Marinelli building him up but I’d hate to see the payroll hamstrung with another highly paid, under-performing lineman.
As always, we’ll see. I think his head case isn’t the “Pay Attention to ME!!!” that guys like TO, Randy Moss, or Ocho Cinco have, but more of the “I’m so fucking great, I don’t have to show up on time, work out, keep in shape, or follow your fucking rules, man!”
He’ll certainly get drafted in the top 15, barring a screw up at his pro day, but I’d be very, very leery of taking him.
No way they go WR, but they do go BPA, and if Bryant was there at 23 (he won’t be), they’d certainly consider it. Driver is older, Jones is injured, Nelson hasn’t truly shown the capabilities of being a stud in the NFL, and Bryant does have skills.
I fully expect the Packers to go either OT or OLB in the first round, maybe DB. Most of the stuff I’ve seen so far, there’s been some talent (Sergio Kindle?, Brandon Graham?, Anthony Davis?, Kyle Wilson, Taylor Mays?) down around 23 that might be worth a pick. They’re generally pretty good about getting the BPA.
I’ve liked what I’ve seen from Veldheer. Though at this point he could be accused of being a finalist for the Underwear Olympics. Coming from a tiny school against poor competition his entire resume amounts to nice measurables. I might accuse you of being a little hypocritical here.
I wasn’t very familiar with Jason Pierre-Paul but I did some looking and I have to agree. This amazing video notwithstanding, he’s got a pretty incomplete resume. In his interviews he seems awfully dumb and immature and he put up average numbers against so-so competition with an elite talent opposite him on the line, but the same could be said for Manny Lawson.
A couple guys I’m liking so far. Ben Tate from Auburn looks like he has the makings of a steal and would be a perfect complement for Forte if you can get him in the 4th or later. Myron Rolle is a bit worrisome taking a year off but I think he’s a perfect fit for the Tampa-2 and I’d love for the Bears to add him in the middle rounds if his stock stays low. Jon Asamoah was the top OG coming out of the Bowl Season and has slide down peoples boards as the combine progressed. While I think he’s a little limited athletically and he’s not that OG-as-potential-OT like Iupati or Ducasse I still think he’s a guy that can start almost immediately and if he gets lost in the mix he’s a late 1st/early 2nd round value you could get in the 4th.
ETA: Was wondering if anyone was talking about giving Taylor Mays the Urlacher treatment and drafting him as a OLB/ILB prospect. He’s got the frame and physicality to play the position if he can add some bulk. Every knock on him seems to be his ability to play the pass but as a LB he’d probably be considered elite in coverage. The guy is a physical freak, so he might be able to handle it. I guess it depends if the 230 he’s at now is his max and if it’s realistic to think he can get up to 250 and handle the pounding and shed blocks.
Yeah, but to play Devil’s Advocate you might be able to argue that the suspension and time off could get him adjusted and humbled. Just because he seemed pretty disinterested in going through the motions of being a student-athlete doesn’t mean that he won’t respond to a hyper-competitive NFL locker room.
I’ll say this, if he’s available at #23 he’d probably be a steal and with Rodgers throwing to him I’d be an unhappy camper.
Trent Williams seems to fit the criteria. Maybe Iupati, Bulaga or Combine Freak du Jour Bruce Campbell. Any of those guys would be a big help, and I’m hoping Rodger’s protection remains crap. My dream Packers pick is Carlos Dunlap. Talk about a bust in the making.
And you’d be right. Until the runup to the combine, I hadn’t heard about the guy, and it was the combine results that caught my eye. But I’m not advocating taking him in the first or second round, mind you, so I’m not putting too much emphasis on the combine results. He’s measurables seem very nice, but he’d certainly be more of a project than a starter. Of course the Packers did the “small school athlete who looks good in his underwear” thing with Allen Barbre, and so far, it hasn’t really worked out that great.
Team him with Jarron Gilbert, and you have the “cool videos that raise your draft stock” All Star team. I think the scouts are looking for that kind of hook, because I’ve seen guys jumping on medicine balls from across the room, and other hokey tricks that mean nothing in real life, but catch your eye nonetheless. I really don’t see the reason for the hype around Pierre Paul, the guy had only 6.5 sacks and is a JUCO transfer looking only to get paid.
I haven’t even checked those guys out. I’m slacking so far.
I really don’t see him as a blow you away stud WR like Megatron or Fitzgerald, and the fact he didn’t want to put in the time at the combine, that he has a year off of football (Mike Williams anyone?), and we still don’t know what kind of shape he is in, and there are enough red flags to chase me off. At #23, I’d seriously consider it if there wasn’t talent at OLB, DB, or OT left, but I wouldn’t like it.
I’ll be hoping those guys fall, but I’m not holding my breath. I realistically can’t see Bulaga, Williams, or even Campbell falling that far, so we’ll end up likely in the second tier of OT. But that’s a long way off. Too long.
I almost forgot. The JETS are releasing Thomas Jones. So if your beloved want to admit their mistake and take him back, he’s available. Maybe they could swing a trade to get Cedric back too.
Yeah, he’s not that good, but I think a comparison to Michael Crabtree is probably pretty close, and Bryant is a little bigger and a little more explosive perhaps ala Braylon Edwards with better hands. Mike Williams was off for about 20 months between the end of 2003 and the start of the 2005 NFL season. Dez Bryant will have only been away from football 3 months more than players who competed in Bowl games and 2 months more than Rejus Benn. The suspension is moot, he’ll have missed essentially the same time as Eric Decker.
I’m sure with the crazy depth on the OL in this draft there’s very little chance that it’ll all be gone by pick 23. OLB and CB are two sparse positions and S is relatively deep. I bet the Packers could get an impact OT/OG or a Safety in the 2nd round if they decided to roll the dice on Bryant assuming he slid that far. I think it’d be tough to argue that Bryant wouldn’t be the BPA at #23 and you can’t deny his potential ceiling.
OTs have been getting gobbled up like crazy in the last couple drafts. Russell Okung, Anthony Davis, Bryan Bulaga,Trent Williams, Bruce Campbell, Mike Iupati and Mike Johnson all have first round grades and I’m not sure there’s a clear division between a first and second tier in that group. This class might be even deeper than the 2008 OT class and I think it’s definitely more athletic. Between the glut of OTs drafted across the league in the last 3 drafts and the depth of this class I bet 3 of those guys last until the second round.
Heh, I was actually in full support of letting Jones go 3 years ago. The guy is a solid team guy and a hard worker but he had absolutely lost a step in his final season with the Bears. Clearly dumping him to give Benson v1.0 the job was stupid, but getting a pick for a guy who you weren’t going to pay $7M/year wasn’t the worst idea in the world. The mistake wasn’t letting Jones go in exchange for a pick, the mistake was not having a plan to replace him. (They packaged that pick and in a roundabout way ended up with Garret Wolfe, Dan Baziun, Marcus Harrison and Kevin Payne for their trouble)
Needless to say the Bears don’t need another hard working, slow footed 3 yards and a cloud of dust RB on the roster in 2010.
He had a higher ypc and more yards in his last year with the Bears than his first year with them. He then goes on to rush for 1,000+ yards three years in a row, with a ypc more than half a yard more per carry each year than Matt Forte had. Sure the JETS had a better O Line than the Bears, but c’mon, Jones had a Pro Bowl season after he left the Bears. That’s not really losing a step.
Not the worst, no, but I wouldn’t ever consider it a good thing to have done.
Benson was the plan. And he went on to the Bengals and had a couple pretty good years. I would submit that the problems weren’t with Thomas Jones and Cedric Benson, but rather with the Bears O Line, their coaching/play calling, and their player evaluation. Rather than dumping their running backs and drafting Forte, they should have improved their O Line. Of course, I’m glad they didn’t, but then again, I’m a Packer fan.
Not while you have Forte you don’t. All kidding aside, though, I do think TJones’ poor performance in the playoffs showed he had worn down and wouldn’t be much more than a complimentary back now. Brian Westbrook might be a thought.
And I see the Bears released Orlando Pace. At least he got what 6 Million from them before heading out to pasture.
I’ve watched Julius the last couple of years down here following the local team (Falcons) and that dude shows up when he wants to. Steve Smith leaves the faithful here in worries WAY more than Julius does… the Falcs have an avrg line and they bottle him up the two times a year they play him. No way would i break a piggy bank for that dude.
I like the idea of Kampman… he can get back at the cheeseheads twice a year… and the falcons have expressed no Peppers interest either… Smarter move would be for them to get Van de boch and pair him with John Abraham…
You forget that the Bears are stupid when it comes to running backs. It’s 2010 and they still don’t seem to understand that you need to have 2 RBs to accomplish anything in the NFL. Thomas Jones ended up in an excellent situation in NY with a fabulous O-Line and that bump from 3.6 ypc to 4.5 had everything to do with Faneca and Woody and a maturing Ferguson and Mangold, but frankly there are probably 40 RBs in the NFL who would have put up equal or better numbers than Jones on that team the last 3 years. Jones is a fine back, but he’d have been useless in Chicago if they kept pretending he was Walter Payton. If I thought the Bears would use Jones wisely and give him support I’d have wanted to keep him, but it was clear they weren’t interested in that and looking for the next Ricky Williams made more sense considering the, admittedly foolish, direction of the team.
It’s a matter of perspective. What did the Jets accomplish with Jones? Not much. You simply don’t win by paying non-Pro Bowl caliber RBs $7M/year. Jones would have been welcome back with the Bears, in a complementary role, but considering keeping Jones probably would have meant letting go of Charles Tillman,Tommie Harris or Olin Kreutz following a Super Bowl season letting him go and getting a pick back was the right choice.
It was the plan indeed, see above re: stupid. Benson wasn’t very good on the Super Bowl team but he was serviceable as a 2nd RB. When they let Jones go they promoted Benson to the 1st RB, but never bothered to even try and add a new 2nd RB. That was where the “plan” was needed.
Can’t argue any of that. The O Line issues are clear, but the fact that they keep repeating their mistakes by relying on one RB (which has been a trend since Neal Anderson) instead of hedging their bets with a solid committee is a close second and the two issues are intertwined. If they’d have drafted O Lineman instead of Curtis Enis, Cedric Benson, Anthony Thomas and Rashan Salaam over the years they’d probably have had a long history of awesome rushing games, instead the ghost of Walter Payton deluded them into chasing “the one” instead.
Hope it buys him a nice beach house and I hope he gets eaten by a shark.
I’ve seen speculation that Kampman could get $10-11M/year to Peppers $12-13M/year. If $12M is too much for Peppers, $11M is way, way, way too much for Kampman. If we could get him for say $7M/year I’d be game, and that assumes his knee is 100% healed which is unlikely, then I’d be for it, but if Kampman is going to cost you 85% of Peppers you might as well go whole hog and get the big fish who doesn’t have a bum wheel.
The draftniks are starting to say that the Rams are going to take a quarterback with the first pick. That leaves the Lions available to take Suh and possibly move up to get another defensive lineman. Word around the campfire was that if the Lions do that or sign Julius Peppers, they might move from a 4-3 defense to a 3-4 defense because the pieces are there.
There’s word that they might trade for Cromartie, however the deal is dead because the Lions don’t want to pay Maurice Morris and a 5th rounder for him.
Suh to the Lions would make me happy. I think Gerald McCoy is possibly going to have a flashier rookie year. He looks like a Freeney type player who could make a couple big plays a game. But Suh looks more like a workhorse anchor who will make some effect every play, and just make the defense a better unit.
I figure those or the only two choices, unless one of the O-line players really takes it to another level. But from what I can see and what I am hearing, there are a bunch of O-line men worth about the 5th to 15th pick, but none worth a top 3 pick.
The Lions can’t lose, really. If they take Suh, they get the consensus “best player in the draft”. If they get McCoy, they still get a really good defensive lineman prospect and it’s in an area of great need.
