I'd love to have a proven all around talent like Forte here for a 1-2 year deal, with gurrenteed money in the 1st year only. Resign Powell and draft a guy like Jordan Howard and I really like Deandrea Washington from Tech as a 7/FA. Forte has an all around game and even at 30-31 has 2 years left in the tank. James Starks for one year wouldn't be horrible either. We still need some real running threats so teams don't just play coverage. And if we have the same QB as last year we need to bring that safety down to create match ups for deck and marsh. We can't just plug a "young guy" in there, unless it's a pick like Elliott. And even he will have growing pains.
Well it's starting to become a one or another type of deal. Do you want to keep Wilk at $15+ million, at a position that we have two good players (Sheldon/Williams despite Sheldon's impending suspension, resign Douzable for his suspended tenure), or do you want two players such as Trevathan, and one of the guards/tackles? Figure on the high end you get Treva than at $7 million, and a mid level right tackle at $5 million, you could still potentially sign a runningback or lower end slot receiver all for the price of Wilkerson. Going to be interesting to see what we do, but it's starting to become apparent that if we resign Wilkerson to a deal he wants, along with a new deal for Fitzpatrick we're going to be standing pat in terms of signing new players. Interesting to note, and I could be wrong, but we haven't tagged Wilkerson yet, have we? I think the worry with is that we tag him, can't find a suitor and get stuck paying him a boat load of money.
We definitely need another vet other than Powell, as he isn't a feature back type and wouldn't hold up as long as Ivory did. Forte may be our best option, but he concerns me. For one thing, according to a new poster Spotrac says he will get $7.4 million per season. That's nuts imo. Forte had the worst year of his career last year and has missed a number of games over the last 2-3 seasons. He's breaking down, and RB production can vanish over night. He may not be as effective as Ivory and may not last any longer. Even if he can, we can't afford to pay him more than we do Ivory. If we do, then either Mo or Fitz won't be re-signed or more players will have to be cut. Yes any rookie is likely to have growing pains, especially concerning blitz pickups, but we may not have a lot of options.
Not sure if he has been brought up with 21 pages but Mark Barron transitioned from S to OLB. Bowles has used a hybrid type player in the past. As a safety certainly can cover better than most LBs.
At 7.4 I want nothing to do with him. But if he is cap friendly as I said before, I love his balanced abilities (Blocking, pass catching, leadership, and vision). Starks is another option. I believe we will be rbbc next year and I hope we draft a few backs and that one is a scat back for the screen game
Matt Forte's market value according to Spotrac. http://www.spotrac.com/nfl/chicago-bears/matt-forte/market-value/
you are prob right regarding Trevathan around 6-7M. might have been wishful thinking on my part on him costing less, so i agree it's not likely. in terms of Wilk, signing him long term instead of playing out the franchise tag saves us cap room this year. His long term deal is not going to avg 15.5M per, and there will be more flexibility in how we structure his cap hit. so i don't believe signing Wilk + Fitz prohibits us from signing any new players. those players would have to be lower cost depth and competition guys though, without any real splash so to speak. the only new signing i'd approach at a mid cost value would be RT. after cutting Breno and hopefully reducing Brick a touch, i figure we can clear out about 6.5M, which i'd invest right back into the Oline.
Why won't it? Marcel Dareus' contract has a $15 mill/year cap hit, while Gerald McCoy's hovers around $13-$14 million/year. I'm not say it's a definite but he has more productive sack numbers than those guys do, so it's not out of the realm to think that he wants that kind of money.
top 3-4 DE's, avg per year Watt - 16.67M Cameron Jordan - 11M Calais Campbell - 11M Cameron Heyward - 10.46M Corey Liuget - 10.25M Derek Wolfe - 9.18M these are all recent contracts too, so the market is well defined. Fletcher Cox will be interesting to monitor as well, as he should be in a similar ballpark as Wilk. but even if you add DT's to the equation, he's still not getting over 15.5M per year. i figured ~12-13M was the magic number last year, but with the cap going up yet again (and another great year by Wilk), it might be pushing as high as 14M now. it will be 16M when Sheldon is up, and he's way riskier, so deferring the cost doesn't help. and as i mentioned, even if the salary is on avg 14M per, we don't have to take a 14M cap hit this year.
According to JETSWIRE, following are FAs the Jets have already approached or have interest in. http://jetswire.usatoday.com/2016/0...iry-robinson-to-curtis-martin/#slideIdslide-1 Prince Amukamara, CB Matt Forte, RB Signed Pacman Jones, CB Re-signed by the Bungles thank God Nick Fairley, DT J.R. Sweezy, OG Bobby Raine, RB probably no more since they have already signed 3 RBs Olivier Vernon, DE/OLB he got too rich for their blood Marcus Sherels, CB/Ret is coming for a visit! Sign that beast! Rod Streater, WR Khiry Robinson, RB Signed Brian Hoyer, QB if released
Some talk about meeting with Rod Streeter this week http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2016/03/10/patriots-host-rod-streater-thursday-as-well/
Anybody know if Julio Jones is still available? I hear he's pretty decent, or at least worth a little look.
http://www.rotoworld.com/articles/nfl/59572/309/live-free-agency-tracker There's a good list of FAs that rotoworld keeps updated. I think we should be able to get a decent TE for cheap - would love Gresham - he would be head and shoulders better than Cumby/Davis. I would have to think Scott chandler especially given history with Gailey would be an option too.
Great link. Out of this list I really like Kelvin Beechum (supposedly excels in pass protection vs. run blocking but still a good pickup) a lot on the offensive side of the ball. I'd like to see us at least grab a tightend that would rank in the 20-25 range in the league. Daryl Smith would be a nice low end high reward signing since he's just about kicked out of the league and then you can pencil in Henderson anyway if he gets suspended. I'll tell you all what though, it's nice to see there's still a ton of fat guys out there to fill in at nose tackle. It'll be interesting to see one of the guys they bring in to compete and how they end up ranking vs. Harrison when Harrison doesn't have elite 3-4 run stoppers next to him rather a bunch of pass rushers.
It works both ways. Snacks was the elite run stopper on that line last year. He was paid accordingly as the top run stuffer that he was. We'll now see if our D will stop the run as well without him.
Yes of course. But if we grab a top edge rusher in the draft, or add a good one in free agency (yet to come?), is giving up an additional ten yards worth having speed all over the defense? I would think so. As Br4d once alluded to, our defensive line make tackles at an incredible rate in the run game. They were also big and slow and plodding in their pass rush, and Harrison was virtually useless on 3rd down and rarely used. As a result he was always fresh because he played a lower percentage of snaps. I can't say it's a bad move for the Giants initially, but he's going to be in an entirely new system where he's not going to be an exclusive two gap guy whose simple need is to not be moved. He may need to penetrate more, and he's going to be flanked by smaller guys that are worse at stopping the run. I just personally wouldn't want to sink all that guaranteed money into a two down player (in a 4-3 defense that relies on generating a rush from the front 4), especially as the league transforms into a passing league more and more every year. It's like pouring big money into a deep threat receiver and reminds me of the big contracts players like Torrey Smith and Mike Wallace only to be surprised as to why they are struggling to succeed at anything but catch deep balls.
