Maybe because their players apart from the big-name free agents are payed for crap? I do recall a lull in the Redskins free agent spending over the last few years (until now). I could just not being paying attention, though.
The 49ers aren’t going to be making any big splashes this year. Even having money, it looks like they’ll forgo signing anybody that fans could actually get excited about. I just hope they upgrade somewhere.
You’d think so, but they don’t seem to have any players other than big-name free agents, except for their own draft picks.
Look at their starting offense, for example: team.FullName News, Scores, Stats, Schedule | NFL.com
Jason Campbell is being paid whatever the going rate is for a back-end 1st round pick, and everyone else other than two linemen is either a big-money free agent or a draft choice who got a big-money extension.
The starting defense is much the same; off the top of my head, Andre Carter Shawn Springs, Marcus Washington, London Fletcher and Cedric Griffin were all signed to big deals in free agency. Carlos Rodgers and LaRon Landry are both on first-round contracts.
That doesn’t even include DeAngelo Hall, who just got something like $50 million, and Fred Smoot, got a $25 million contract to come back from the Vikings 2 years ago.
Winslow goes to the Bucs for draft picks.
Fast No longer Fragile, but maybe Fossilized Freddy Taylor signs with the Patriots.
Paprika Rosenfels gets traded to the Vikings.
Ravens lose Scott to Jets, dump a DE, but get Dominque “You may be a Cornerback” Foxworth(y).
The Packers do nothing. Yet.
And I make stupid jokes about football player names.
Lots going on.
Holy shit!
I’m not entirely sure I understand the move- we’ve got a solid second round pick starting at TE (Alex Smith), and three relatively big-money free agents behind him (Ben Troupe, John Gilmore, Jerramy Stevens) but it sure as hell adds a new dimension to our offense.
Maybe they’ll just split him out wide a lot like the Colts do with Dallas Clark and run a three tight end set.
I think Haynesworth just became the Smartest Man in Football. Not only can he go back to coasting along to collect the $30 to 40 mil he will see of that contract, but he gets to stomp on Andre Gurode’s head twice a year now!
Maybe, maybe not. Scott pulled a 180 at the last minute to hose the Browns in '06. It looks like he may do it again to the Jets this year as there are some concerns that all was not as agreed as both he and the Jets thought. He is giving Baltimore another chance to make an offer.
It’s not big shock that the Bears have been utterly silent in Free Agency so far. The NFC North as a whole has been, with the exception of Sage in Minny, but the Bears seem like the most logical team to make one notable move at either the WR position or the Safety position. I’d love to see Housh, Coles or one of the younger guys like Henderson or Washington in Blue and Orange. There’s still talk that former Illini Eugene Wilson will sign to replace Mike Brown but nothing firm yet and they can’t rely on the draft to fill all their needs, especially since Safety is the weakest position in the draft.
Update: I just now see that the Bears signed OT Frank Omiyale from the Panthers to a 4-year $14M deal. I know nothing about this guy and supposedly in his limited playing time he really impressed a lot of people last season. Carolina’s line and running game were very good, so I’m cautiously optimistic. It’s a pretty big chunk of money to give a guy with only 1 start under his belt, but if you’re confident you are getting a veteran with lots of miles left on him who can play all over he’ll be a big help. Supposedly 10 other teams were eager to sign him so hopefully the Bears aren’t insane here. This might be indicative of the Bears intentions to not address the OT position in the first round of the draft…WR probably then.
The biggest signings obviously start with the Haynesworth move. $100M for 7 years isn’t the insane $16M/year some were rumoring, but $14M is pretty nuts. The $32M over the first 13 months is getting a lot of pub, but that doesn’t mean much IMHO, it’s not like the Skins were going to want to cut him before year 2. If anything that might be good for their salary cap situation should he be a disappointment since less of the cost will be accelerated if they want to cut him in year 4, it’ll be interesting to see what his deal looks like on a per-year basis when that news comes out. This deal could be mostly guaranteed money and then fictional years at the end making the real cost much more palatable.
The Hall deal is probably more unreasonable unless the Skins are convinced he’s going to be an elite shutdown corner. This deal is about the same deal that Asante Samuel got last season from the Eagles and Hall was essentially a complete bust at the start of last season and had essentially imploded in Atlanta before that. Lots of risk with that one.
I wonder who’s going to be on the chopping block for the Skins as the deadline approaches. They’ll certainly have to trim some contracts with those big bonuses. They dropped Springs already, he’ll probably be welcomed by someone soon. Wonder if the Bears would look at him to possibly play Nickel or move to FS (and provide insurance at CB).
The Denver Broncos added J.J. Arrington and Correll Buckhalter, two guys that combine to make a really solid tandem. If Shanahan were still there fantasy players would be foaming at the mouth since either of these guys could go for 1200 yards and 8 TDs in that system. Who knows what the Bronco running attack will be under the new regime, but that still a notable pair of moves. Those are probably the 2 best RBs in terms of cost-benefit out there.
The Broncos also stole Brian Dawkins from the Eagles for a 2-year deal. Haven’t seen the numbers but the Eagles are probably pretty disappointed. That’s a short deal that it seems they could have beaten. The Broncos also are supposedly adding S Renaldo Hill and WR Jabar Gaffney (making for a real deep WR corp) which fill some holes. I’ll say this, the Broncos new regime really seems to have a plan and they are attacking it. Time will tell if this spending spree (no dollar amounts yet so who knows how spree-ish it is) is savvy or if these guys are going to end up being dead weight. If anything their pass defense will have improved some, which it desperately needed.
The Titans resigned Kerry Collins for $15M and 2 years, a pretty good contract for both sides I’d say. That’s good money for a old guy like Collins and if the Titans are getting the same output they got last year it’s a bargain for a starting QB. The Titans have been saying that signing him was a higher priority than Haynesworth, I agree completely. The Titans also resigned Vincent Fuller is what is supposedly a huge guy for them to keep in their scheme. I have to rely on the experts there but supposedly this Nickelback gets more snaps and is more critical than a MLB in their scheme, so assuming that’s true this is a huge move for what was a great defense.
Bart Scott goes to the Jets, at least for now, and he’ll help them a bunch. I tend to think he’s a little over rated and a scheme guy, but with Ryan in NY that scheme should remain. 5 years $40M is a nice number putting him in Lance Briggs class. Looks like that’s where the Jets are spending Brett Favre’s money and they seem to be turning into Redskins North the last couple seasons.
Probably the single scariest signing out there is the Fred Taylor move to the Patriots that I predicted the second he got released. Holy crap folks, the Pats with a RB that productive and dynamic is going to simply be gut wrenching. Taylor is better at this point than Corey Dillon was when they brought him in. The league and the AFC had better pray the Fred Taylor’s Groin ™ makes a return to national prominence.
I love the Winslow trade for both teams. The Bucs have money to spend and Winslow is a productive guy, though they seemed to already have a log jam at the TE position, and paired with Bryant the Bucs will have some good weapons though the air. The Browns need draft picks and early reports have them getting a 2nd and 5th rounder for him which is a steal. I suspect that those picks will be spent on defense, defense and more defense.
The Pats have also traded Mike Vrabel to the Chiefs for an undisclosed draft pick. I’m not sure how good Vrabel will be outside of NE and if he’ll do much to improve that defense, but it makes sense if the Chiefs are moving to a 3-4 scheme. Vrabel would essentially replace Edwards who was cut. We’ll have to see just what they gave up.
He didn’t run at the combine. And at his pro day he ran 4.51 and a 4.47.
Anyway, let it also show that Terrell Owens ran a 4.19 and Randy Moss ran a 4.29 at 30 years old, and that Larry Fitzgerald was the third pick in the draft, making him an interesting example of how speed is overvalued in the draft at the WR position.
Agreed. Though speed is probably slightly over-valued with RBs and LBs. WRs and CBs are legitimately speed-intensive. Though there is often a distinction between 40-time speed and speed in pads.
Yeah, maybe. But then you think about Chris Johnson, or Shawne Merriman. I mean, maybe it’s a little overrated, and obviously it shouldn’t be the only thing you look at – everybody thinks it’s stupid to draft a guy who looks like he can’t play because he suddenly explodes at the combine. But, you know, when I see Darrius Heyward-Bey run a 4.30 or I guess to take a better example, if I see Aaron Curry run a 4.56 and Brian Cushing/Marcus Freeman run a 4.74, I’m going to say yes, those three numbers are all indicative of something important. I’ll take my chances that 8 years from now people are going to say “Brian Cushing was a productive player at USC, but they said he wasn’t fast enough, and he slipped all the way to the bottom of the second round, and look at him now.”
Um… what? Ben Johnson never ran that fast.
Well, yeah, but the time they clock is the time they clock.
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/classic/news/story?page=add_owens_terrell:
Was that electronically timed?
You can play that game the other way too though. To pick some of the top FA RBs out there now. Derrick Ward ran a 4.54. Maurice Morris ran a 4.53. Correll Buckhalter ran a 4.53. If a guy is really fast or really slow for his position you learn something, but for most positions so long as they are in the right range it’s not that big a deal.
Heyward-Bey ran a really fast time, he’s at the extreme and you have to really like that. Curry was also elite., running speeds in the category of Urlacher and Lewis. The other guys are just in the window of acceptable, but that doesn’t mean they are going to be bad. The point is that 40 times matter only when you are looking at the extremes.
A few minor surprises for Steelers fans so far. They re-signed Chris Kemoeatu at LG and released Kendall Simmons (RG) and Marvel Smith (LT); I think Smith is done because of injuries, Simmons will be a great signing for someone if he stays healthy. They won another super bowl with him injured so I guess it’s time to let him go. They also released Anthony Smith, a decent safety who should have been playing strong rather than free safety but who’s attitude doesn’t make him a good fit for the team. He’ll make a good back-up for some one, the Steelers D was not well suited for him although he does like to hit hard. It looks like the team has given up on signing Nate Washington (WR - rumoured to be going to Detroit) and Bryant McFadden (CB) who just became too expensive.
I hope he makes a journey west to Chicago for a look-see.
He has good speed. He’s one of those guys, though, who catches the tough ones and drops easy ones. With the Bears he’d make a good deep threat to draw coverage deep and open space for Devin Hester if they moved him to the slot. (am I right that Hester didn’t play from the slot much last year?)
That’s exactly what I was thinking. The staff seems to see Hester as the deep threat and they have tended to put him on the outside and run him long. They’ve often used words that imply they are looking for a #2 behind Hester (as opposed to Hester being the #2) which indicates to me that they don’t want to move him to the slot. Hester has ridiculous speed and is a mediocre route runner so I understand the motivation for having him on the outside. It’s simpler and suits his limited talents, but he’s simply too small and has trouble making the hard acrobatic catches that outside WRs need to make on occasion.
All that makes shopping for a WR tricky. Do you get a guy like Washington (or Devery Henderson) who is essentially a taller, more prototypical version of what Hester is? If you do that you are probably going to need to move one of them to the slot. I have said that they need to put Hester in the slot and I think he’d be more useful there, but it would require him to become a better route runner and a smarter player to make the reads that the offense requires. I’m not sure the powers that be agree there though.
Housh would probably be a better fit. He can play both inside and outside and they can use him to compensate for Hester’s weaknesses and use Hester’s speed to create openings for Housh. The big question is money.
I suppose they could get Washington and play him as the weakside WR and go vertical with both him and Hester regularly. It’d be a challenge for defenses and the middle would be wide open for Forte, Olsen and whoever ends up being the slot guy, but that’s more risky than the Bears have traditionally been. If the Bears are targeting Heyward-Bey in the draft I’d love to see them do this with him and sign Coles to play the slot, that’d be a scary lineup.
I caught the Bears a couple of times on NFL Replay and I just thought he was playing outside because of injuries or something. Washington wouldn’t be any good in the slot I don’t think; one thing he did pick up from Hines Ward though is downfield blocking. He laid a few good licks this year for his size. I’d try to get the ball to Hester in space and get guys like Washington out in front like a punt return. Scary thought trying to defend that all game while still guarding against the deep ball.