Saints releasing veteran free safety Dwight Smith By Len Pasquarelli / ESPN.com The New Orleans Saints apprised agent Drew Rosenhaus on Thursday that they have abandoned their efforts to trade starting free safety Dwight Smith, one of their steadiest defenders during a dismal 2005 season, and instead will release the veteran defensive back after just one year with the franchise. The move comes after New Orleans officials spent much of the offseason attempting to trade Smith, and just one week before Saints players are scheduled to report to summer training camp at Millsaps College near Jackson, Miss.A five-year veteran, Smith will become an unrestricted free agent once his name officially appears on the NFL internal transactions network, which could come as early as Thursday afternoon. While the Saints apparently could not find a trade deal to their liking, it is expected that Smith will have multiple suitors as a free agent. > any takers ? ?
don't know all that much about Smith, plus we have two excellent YOUNG starting safeties in Coleman and Rhodes... if he wanted to come extra cheep I.E. minimum wage sure he could come teach the youngins a thing or two....
Kelly let's ask the question AGAIN. What does this have to do with the NY Jets? Stop posting crap just to say that you were the first to post it.
I'd love Smith on the Jets, he's one of the best and most underrated safties in football. I'm not crazy about Kerry Rhodes.
Kerry Rhodes has the potential to be an all pro. His size, speed and athleticism make him the ultimate "center fielder". There really is no reason for us to address the position given these circumstances. let Rhodes develop.
Dwight Smith is short and would still be a backup if he was with the Bucs. plus has a horrible attitiude toward fans trying to ge autographs. living in tampa and being a football fan i have had the pleasure f dealing with that deuch.
Smith is a solid safety. My guess is he goes back to TB, and starts. He has a nose for tackles, but also has good coverage abilty. He played very well for NO last year.... why he got cut is a major mystery. They tried to trade him, and got no takers. My guess is he's probably looking at strike three in the substance abuse program, next violation, 4 game suspension. Bullocks looks good for NO, but right now, non other than Stoutmeyer is the other safety. Yeah, I don't remember how to spell Omar's last name. Sue me.
His playmaking ability is there but I have serious doubts about his ability to read the play before it gets to him. Eric Coleman has the same problem, and I don't know if I like having two coverage-dumb safties in one defensive backfield. Then again for all I know Rhodes (or Coleman for that matter) has drastically improved his game in that aspect. So who am I to judge?
According to who? You? OK, I'll start posting my projections out of leftfield. Here we go: Chester McGlockton, coming out of retirement and he'll give us the help we badly need at DT. Seeing a trend here?
Rhodes has the physical ability to completely make up for his awareness deficiencies...he is THAT talented. Not to mention, safety is a very difficult position to start as a rookie b/c of the mental learing curve. It is well documented that such things improve drastically over time. The fact that Rhodes was pretty good for us last year w/ this in mind, speaks wonders about his future upside. There isn't a young safety in football I would take over Rhodes, excluding the obvious in Palamalu and Reed. As for Coleman, I don't think he's so much "coverage dumb" as he is physically limited. He's a great role player in the fact that he's good at initial reads and flows to the ball very well. What holds him back is lack of size and lack of deep speed. I'm not sure if he's the long term answer at strong safety, but I do believe he is the kind of player that flourishes under a parcells/bellichick type scheme. He'll have his hands full in holding off Maddox and Smith.
Good points on all counts. Coleman certainly got better at reading the play last season but still has work to do in that department. He often seems to be saved often by his natural ability to play the ball well.
I agree with you. The thing is it wouldn't be a big deal if this only happened once or twice, but Kelly has made a habit of posting crap in the NYJ forum... I also remember Kelly making a post earlier this offseason about how Jon Runyan signed with the Jets...
actually rhodes has great instincts, thats why he made all those plays in the pre season. better instincts than most safeties i would say (exclude guys like reed, taylor and polamalu). the guy dropped 4 or 5 int's last year and a couple of them were intercepted by ty law. i fully expect kerry to get about 5 int's and 10+ deflections next year while his tackle numbers probably will go down to ~70. i hope they line him up at FS and let him cover only (TE, slot receivers, h-backs etc.).
