Probably the stupidest reason to dismiss a player. It's like the USC QB thing. Scout the man, not the school he went to. It's not like he played in some weird offense that would be incompatible with the NFL. They play a pro-style offense, he did it all. Ran for power, ran for speed, caught the ball out of the backfield, excellent in pass protection. Fantastic stats too in a solid defensive conference in the Big 10. It's just sad to see all these RB's with inferior resumes to Ball being pushed ahead of him. He is an elite talent.
He's a solid player with no real wow factor. Plus, he has had a lot of touches in 4 years. How long before he hits the wall?
we need depth, if we can trade a pick for him, he is a guy that has proven he can make plays in the nfl. one of the biggest issues with tanny is that the team had arguably one of the worst pools of playmakers in the nfl. greene mcknight and powell? mcknight is great on special teams, but he is unreliable holding onto the ball. powell has shown some promise but lets be real here hes expendable given the right circumstances. goodson is already the best rb on the roster and he was just signed. chris ivory would be a great pick up for a 4th rounder
if ivory was that good, the saints would keep him. i say keep all our picks and acquire more picks if the right deal presents itself. otherwise, go bargain bin shopping later in the summer. no way i trade away a pick for the 4th rb on the saints.
Instead of us giving away picks like we have done almost every off season how about we take a page from the Pats and stock pile picks. Go with the frame of mind that you dont have to over spend for players.... We could finally try to have a ton of picks and maybe push some of those picks into next year. Where if we wanted to move up in the draft and get Clowney and or Bridgewater we have the ammunition to do such. We realistically arent a running back away from winning the Superbowl
are you serious? they put a pretty high price tag on a guy thats buried in their depth chart (2nd round tender for an udfa...)
I like this idea...Ivory may be better than any RB you can get in the fourth this year but if you keep your picks you can use the fourth to move up to make sure you get your guy in the top of round 2. I'd take an unproven rookie that has something to prove over a guy that is perennial hurt. Draft picks are key with a depleted roster. Going for untapped resources is the way to go.
sometimes its better to cash in your assets. ivory is buried behind a 1st round pick and a high priced f.a. they got him as a udfa, if they turn that into a 4th round pick thats a good r.o.i
Someone astutely pointed out earlier that he is an UDFA and so an "original round" tender can't be used, and that is the only variety other than 1st or 2nd round. So they did what they could because they like his potential as a backup in case one of their RBs goes down. They have maintained the RB merry-go-round pretty well over the past few years. Edit:
They have 5 this year but in years past they've had double digit in picks and would just keep trading back if there wasnt a player they wanted or was at good value for them. They built a team of practically no name players and made them work.
That's not true, with all the picks they have had [they used most of them on defense] there defense still has sucked, ever since Spygate there defense has been ranked between 20 and 32. Their still a good team because of Brady, not because of there gazillion draft picks. P:S I thought Bellichick was a defensive guru???????????
Not only that, but Bill hasn't been shy about trading picks for players. He's done so for Welker, Ocho Cinco, Haynesworth, tried to for Antonio Brown, etc. Can't pigeon hold yourself with a strategy.
And Aqib Talib this year, but just because Belichick has been using his picks and a 'mediocre' drafter doesn't mean we should use our picks on some oft injured RB who will want more money than a draftee is slotted to make per the rookie wage scale. And I'd say they have done alright with Gronk, Hernandez, Vereen, Ridley, Chandler Jones, Dont'a Hightower, Dennard etc. I can't pretend to know which of these solid players and others that I didn't mention are from trading back but if we hit on that many players over the past 3 drafts the grass'd be a whole lot greener.
They still have missed a lot on they're draft picks. And people make it sound like Tannenbaum was bad at drafting, that is not true, he did however trade away a lot of draft picks which in turn killed our depth.
I still believe the interest in Ivory is just a back-up plan should the RBs they like not be there in the draft. People are gonna need to come to grips that not every hole is gonna be filled on draft day. That's just not realistic.
i see about the second round tender, but my point still remains, despite their already deep backfield, they wanted to keep him around. plenty of rbs have been buried on the depth chart only to find new life on another team. i think the guys got some potential