I’ve really got my fingers crossed on Jamaal Williams making it out of Denver and to New Orleans. The Saints will be a contender to repeat regardless, but they desperately need a run stuffing DT and a solid DE. Getting Williams would give the Saints a chance to go after the best remaining DE in the draft and use a later pick on a rotational big man.
Broncos signed him to a 3 year deal. Sorry.
The Saints lost Fujita to Cleveland, but have a visit scheduled with Rams DE Leonard Little tomorrow and Thursday, according to the ESPN link Omni posted. If I remember right, Little gave us some trouble when we played the Rams last year…
Well I do have to say this is a fun off season. Lots of speculations and hopes. And I’m looking up career stats on a lot of guys I never really cared about before. 
Nick Collins has signed his tender for the Packers and is off the RFA market. Both the Packers and his agent are optimistic that a long term deal will be done soon.
Good to hear. Being a small market team in an uncapped year and with the possibility of a labor dispute, the Packers are going to have to be smart. Resigning Collins to a long term deal will be a good start though.
And, as an aside, the biggest free agency moves in 2009 were Haynesworth, Cassell, Houshmandez, Bart Scott, Brian Dawkins, and Jason Brown. In 2008, they were Jared Allen, Asante Samuel, Al Faneca, Alge Crumpler, Justin Smith, Michael Turner, and Gibril Wilson. In 2007, Adalius Thomas, Patrick Kerney, Matt Schaub, Eric Steinbach, Kevin Curtis, Nate Clements, Daniel Graham, Cato June, and Donte Stallworth.
Now, Jared Allen, Michael Turner, and Matt Schaub (all under 26 when signed) seem to have been good signings. But the rest seem to me (I don’t know much about how Haynesworth made the Redskins better, but they went from 8-8 to 4-12) to have been wastes.
I’ve never really been impressed with big free agent acquistions. Now I’m begining to see why.
Ahem.
Darren Sharper says Who Dat?
From USA Today, here’s every NFL player’s 2009 salary. This doesn’t count bonuses.
The player that jumps out at me as obviously underpaid is Ed Reed. He was even lower in 2008. Plenty of overpaid players, though.
Well, the Bears have money to spend. They aren’t broke, they are just cheap. I don’t give a whit about the $20M we could waste in 2010 if he’s a bust since it’s an uncapped year. I’m less worried about wasting money on Peppers than I am about wasting cap space. There’s money risked for sure, but the way the contract is structured there’s essentially zero chance that the franchise would be crippled besides injury.
That’s incredibly inaccurate. Bart Scott and Brian Dawkins were huge successes last year and you left out the previously noted Sharper. Plus that guy named Favre. In 2008 Samuel was a massive success as was Faneca and Stacey Andrews. That 2007 list has more hits than it does misses, probably Clements and Curtis are the only busts. Remember that was when Stallworth was helping the Pats to 16-0 and followed up with a $30M deal to Cleveland.
In other news, Thomas Jones signed with the Chiefs for $5M and 2 years.
Pittsburgh got all feisty and signed 4 guys, though I think Clark might be the only one worth a piss.
The Broncos tried to beef up their D line by signing Jamal Williams away from division rival San Diego and Jarvis Green from the Pats. Could be two very good moves for a defense that was already on the rise.
There’s a certain amount of comedy to the Giants signing Jim Sorgi to backup Eli Manning. To steal a joke from Trey Wingo, maybe his next gig will be as Archie’s personal assistant.
There is a bunch of speculation on where the guy is going to land. Seattle, Oakland, San Fransisco and Arizona all seem like teams that could be very interested in having him compete for a starting job while they locate their QB of the future. With his arm strength Oakland seems like a nice option and his ties to the PNW might make a desirable option to fill the role Seneca Wallace left. In Seattle he’d be a nice seat warmer if Hasselbeck is done and the Seahawks draft a rookie.
Aside from Clark those are all depth signings. Randle El will be the 4th receiver and back up Logan on returns. The other two guys are there fore special teams more than anything else although Allen is an upgrade over Tyrone Carter as backup safety. Colbert seems to have two basic draft strategies: best player available or target a guy and trade up to get him if necessary. These filling-out-the-roster moves tell me they’re going for the best guy available this year, especially since they signed a depth o-lineman too.
The joke on the Steelers board is that they’re bringing Randle El in to compete for the QB job if Roethlisberger winds up in prison or something.
Which is the reason for my concern for small market teams, so the NFL can avoid the Yankees problem of MLB. $20 million in one year could wipe out their entire profit for the Packers from one year. And their ability to raise more funds to cover gaps is tightly controlled. But you’re right, to the Bears, it’s not a big deal to waste money in a non-capped year. And it probably wouldn’t be for the Packers for one or two years either.
Fair enough. I was just thinking aloud. I don’t think Bart Scott’s one sack, 92 tackles, and 0 turnovers was that great, but Dawkins did make the Pro Bowl and Sharper definitely was a huge help for the Saints. And you didn’t even give me props for not mentioning Cutler. And Favre did have a great year… until the big game. snicker. Sorry, that still makes me smile.
Derek Anderson rips Cleveland fans:
Derek, we’re sorry too. Just not about the same things. It took the league a bit more than half a season to figure out how to shut you down and two seasons and two coaching staffs later no one, yourself included has been able to make you play up to your contract. Better luck with you next team, no hard feelings. But like yourself the next time “your team” comes to Cleveland, we hope you’re starting too.
You should be sorry about how the Browns’ “fans” cheered when he got injured. It was a classless, shitty thing to do, and Anderson was right to tell it like it is. Sure he never lived up to his contract, but it’s not like he quit trying and phoned it in.
Yeah, the fans have always hated him for getting in the way of the Golden Boy. I mean, by 2009 it was pretty clear he was a one trick pony who’d been shut down - but you should’ve seen the hatred directed to him at the end of 2007, where he had a pretty remarkable season.
Edit: I’m sure it wasn’t even a significant minority of the fans that booed him, but a vocal minority. Even haters are usually classy enough not to boo injuries. I actually don’t even remember the game in question.
If you take away his stats in that one arena league game against the Bengals, his season that year was actually pretty unremarkable. Anderson has never been good, he had one year where he rose slightly above mediocrity.
It doesn’t excuse fans booing an injury to a guy on the home team though. That’s just shitty.
The game in question may well have been against the Colts in December of '08. I do recall cheering, not the injury but the fact that the “golden boy” was warming up. I agree, there was a lot of senseless fan boi-ism for Quinn (and a lesser extent DA). It never made much sense to me, I think Brady Quinn will have a better career than DA (for which ever teams they end up playing for) but will cheer for any QB that helps us win.
As to Derek’s outburst, I forgive him. Anyone who’s watched him play for any amount of time knows that he’s prone to making very poor decisions under pressure. We just didn’t know he made them off the field as well.
Cheering in a situation where anyone got hurt, even if it’s because you like the backup, is shitty. Not only that, but at the end of 2008 Quinn was already injured, which means you were either cheering for Ken Dorsey or you were cheering Anderson’s injury.
I agree, but sometimes things can be other than they appear. As an example, I was at a Monday Night game years ago, Saints at home against the Giants. Somebody–I’ve forgotten who–got hurt, and the crowd cheered. BUT, the crowd was not cheering the injury at all…they were cheering the instant replay on the big screens showing a great play by one of our guys. The live crowd did not notice the injured player until after the replay. He got the traditional round of applause as he left the field and everything.