Wow, what a strange week and one that changes the priorities
of a few teams. In looking at what has
happened so far with trades and signings the big question is who got better,
who got worse, who made an oddball decision, and other such thoughts. The basis of a lot of this will be how much
bang a team gets for their buck. It may
also be interesting to look at who a team could have had or who they should have
perhaps pushed harder for. (All salary figures come from http://www.spotrac.com/)
Starting with the Bears, who really knows what happens
behind the scenes but I am very surprised with some things they did and did not
do.
Pernell McPhee –
The Bears overpaid for a player that has not actually really been anything but
average at best when you really break it down.
This contract puts him as the 9th highest paid OLB (though he
is currently listed as a DE on NFL.com which does not make sense to me) based
on average salary but he has 6 starts in 4 years, and his average sacks per
season are a meager 4.5. Not what you are looking for as cornerstone of a 3-4
switch and I feel there were some better alternatives out there. My question is, why not go after Jabaal Sheard who is younger, a better
pass rusher (5.75 sacks per season average and was hurt last year), and has
more experience? To compound on this,
most players that the Ravens let walk do not really turn out with the exception
of Paul Kruger.
One
interesting player that is still out there and grew up in Chicago is Sam Acho.
Antrel Rolle – This
was a quiet signing and may have been a pretty shrewd signing. Rolle is getting old but he is still a major
upgrade over anybody the Bears have had since Mike Brown. At the 23rd highest paid safety in
the NFL, they got a deal.
Eddie Royal – WR is
turning into a really interesting position and Royal is a slot guy. This contract puts him at the 24th
highest paid receiver in the league.
While that is most likely an overpayment he is probably worth it because
they Bears are pretty thin at WR.
However, if I was the Bears, I would have seriously considered making a
major play for Andre Johnson. Not that Johnson is Jerry Rice, but his
situation reminds me so much of Jerry Rice where the 49ers were pretty much
done with him and he still had some gas in the tank.
One player that the Bears should have really thought about
is Bryan Bulaga. While I am a Packers fan and I am happy he
stayed, Bulaga is from Chicago and they could have made a pretty good pitch to
lure him down here. Who knows what
happened during the legal tampering period but I did not hear a peep. Two guys that I think the Bears should bring
back are Lance Briggs and Charles Tillman. However, Briggs needs to move inside to the
Mike and Tillman needs to move over to Safety.
De La Puenta and Britton may also not be a bad idea.
As for the Packers, they did what they usually do; re-sign
their own players that are worth it.
Randall Cobb – Cobb
is an interesting one because his value to the Packers is not just as a WR or
returner but he also lines up in the backfield and his chemistry with Rodgers
is pretty amazing. That is part of the
reason always love former QBs playing other positions. With this new contract he is the eighth
highest paid WR in the NFL. I would take
him over Maclin who is 2 years older and received $1M more.
Bryan Bulaga –
Bulaga is the second highest paid RT in the league now. He is pretty good but I am not sure that he
is the second best in the league. Then
again, the highest paid RT in the league is Gosder Cherilus…Regardless, with
the money the Packers had and Bulaga being a pretty steady player this was
okay.
Scott Tolzien – I
loved Tolzien, but he is not the future at back-up anymore. I would have preferred to hang onto Flynn and draft a young guy this
year. While Flynn is still a possible
re-sign, Tolzien was given a bit more money than he should. But then again, we are talking about a
back-up QB.
The best move the Packers made was the one they did not
make. Davon House is now the 24th highest paid CB and was not
worth the contract that the Jags gave him.
House started to play consistently better last year and did play well
against Calvin Johnson. However, he just
never seems to make the plays he should and he is not the best of
athletes. He also may have the worst hands
I have ever seen on a CB. I hope for the
best for him but he was not worth that money.
The only problem is that it puts the Packers in a precarious
situation. Now they really need to bring
Tramon Williams back. Williams bounced back after a rough beginning
to 2013 and had a solid 2014 but he is getting up there in age a bit.
With all of that said, the CB market is really inflated
right now. House might be better than
the likes of Brandon Flowers who is
enigmatic, Buster Skrines who is
really more of a slot CB, Chris Culliver
is talented but has an attitude that seems to rival Darrelle Revis and is a bit inconsistent, and I am not sure why Byron Maxwell received as much as he
did.
Ted Thompson tends to wait it out and then look to see if
there are some bargains out there. I do
not see a lot out there that excites me but you never know. Perhaps brining in Casey Matthews who I always thought was more of a 3-4 Will
Linebacker. The Packers have some free
agents that I would like to see back on the team: John Kuhn, B.J. Raji, Jarrett Bush
So outside of the two teams I typically write about I wanted
to bring up a team that has made some quietly good moves and a team that has made
loud bad moves.
The Raiders have been very active and brought in some very
good players that will help them. It was
not that long ago that Curtis Lofton
was considered to be a great player for the Falcons and he was being praised as
a shrewd signing by the Saints, plenty of gas left there. Dan
Williams is just a run-plugger but he is stout and will help to clog the
middle but his stats will never reflect his value. Nate
Allen is just kind of average but will most likely start. Malcom
Smith has had his moments and they are not really paying him all that much
(36th highest paid OLB). Even
though he is just like an extra lineman out there, I like the Lee Smith signing. Hudson
is worth the gamble as he is relatively young.
Helu will probably not make
the team but is a situational pounding RB.
The Eagles are just blowing my mind with their moves. In my mind the Eagles have traded away their
top two players on offense and it sounds like McCoy really did not get along with Chip Kelly. I thought the Bears should have made a play
for Foles but bringing in Bradford was a real head scratcher to
me unless they really butcher up his contract.
I am not the biggest DeMarco
Murray fan because he seems fragile and moody. A lot of professionals are talking about how
great this backfield is going to be but I keep thinking about how bad the Carolina
Panthers messed up their organization when they were paying three RBs a lot of
money. Is there anybody out there that
really and truly thinks that the Eagles now have the Second and Eighth best CBs
in the NFL? Because they are paying two
guys that the Seahawks had no problem casting off as top 10 corners. I think Kelly has officially bit off more
than he can chew. The strange thing is
that I am saying this and I like him and his approach to coaching a lot. But right now, it just does not make sense to
me.
As for the Dolphins, it starts and ends with Suh.
There is no doubt in anybody’s mind that Suh is a dominant force on
the defensive line. But how much does he
change the game? Let’s put this into
perspective a bit. JJ Watt is a bigger
difference maker right? Did he make the Texans
a playoff team? How about this, there
are only 4 QBs in the NFL that have a higher average salary than him. Let’s be honest here too, he is a DT, how
much of a difference does DT make? Okay,
let’s keep going with this, a ROOKIE DT had more sacks than him (granted Aaron
Donald has three other first round picks around him to take the pressure
off). Or that three other players in the
NFL had twice as many or more sacks then him.
Sorry Dolphins but you lost with Mike
Wallace and you will lose with Suh.
The Jaguars have a lot of money to spend and they spent it,
not well but not horribly. They need to
build a base set of good players and they did that but almost everybody they
brought in was overpaid. I am really
starting to think that the TE position is being highly overrated now. Still, you need to give them credit for doing
what they can to make a change. I am
surprised that they did not bring in a veteran WR though.
There is a lot of buzz around the Seahawks trade for Jimmy Graham and I keep wondering who
won out on that one. Jimmy Graham is the best receiving
tight end in the league right now and has put up receiver like numbers. On the other hand, Max Unger is in the top 5 centers in the league right now. Seattle is really putting their team at risk
by not having a smart and quite good C to lead the line. This also helps New Orleans with their salary
cap a bit so that needs to be factored in.
Giving up the 31st pick and picking up a fourth rounder in the process
is not a bad thing for the Saints either.
The one thing to consider is that Seattle has been very good at finding
replacements along the OL and making average players work. I give a slight edge to the Saints with this
one, but really, it was good for both.
To me, the biggest steal this week is the Foles for Bradford trade. There are
some interesting nuances to this trade though.
So Rams get Foles, a 2015 4th round pick, and a 2016 second
round pick. The Eagles receive Bradford
and if Bradford does not start 8 games they get a 4th round pick
back from the Eagles. If Bradford gets
injured then they get a third round pick.
If I was looking at this I would say that the deal should be reversed
and Foles is the bigger value player.
The Rams have been playing with 4th and 5th level
starters when Bradford has gone down and still been okay. With a very strong defense Foles can work on
mistake free football with a few slingers out there. I think the Rams pulled highway robbery here.
Mason Foster is
an interesting player to me and he has not signed with anybody yet. He looked very good early in his career but
was not a good fit for Lovie Smith’s system apparently. He might be a surprise diamond in the rough
for somebody.
Rob Housler could
be another interesting player that surfaces with somebody and turns out to be a
quietly smart signing.
Stefen Wisniewski was
a player that I thought was pretty good but the Raiders had no problem dumping
him. Bears might be shrewd in signing
him.
I already touched on this but I think Casey Matthews needs a change of scenery and that he has always
been more of a Will linebacker in a 3-4.
That is all for now but I will update periodically! Thank you for reading!
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