At S? Yeah, I'm surprised they haven't been more aggressive there, although I like our current projects quite a bit. But, when you've got two holes to fill, it's tough to do it successfully with street FAs and mid-rounders.
At OL, we've been pretty serious about filling those spots with premium resources recently, and I think we're starting to see that payoff, finally.
They've gotten a good start to filling the OL holes but I'm not content. A little over 2 years ago Dallas had done nothing other than sign Free (which was a move I liked at the time, not going to lie.). I don't know if I would consider 2 promising players in the span of 3 offseasons all that serious when the entire line has been a wreck. Last year they were serious about fixing the DB position and they traded away future picks and signed a free agent who's contract basically doubles the contracts of the OL they picked up last year.
That's getting serious about addressing a need.
The Titans drafted Warmack and signed Andy Levitre in one offseason. That's getting serious. Dallas is only getting as serious as they have to. They had nothing at LT and so they had to draft Tyron. The rest of the line went to hell and they had nothing to the right of Tyron so they had to draft Frederick. Jerry called him the "Last of the Mohicans" not because they anticipated drafting him that high when the day started but because they knew damn well that they couldn't afford to leave the draft empty handed. It would have been borderline insane for them not to make those moves considering the condition of the line. It would have been indefensible. There wouldn't have been anything anyone could have said to rationalize them not picking Tyron and not allocating high picks to the OL this year.
I think they completely missed the boat last year. They could have passed on the two castoffs they ended up signing and went after Grubbs. The cap consequence over the life of the contract is really, really small. Almost infuriatingly small.
If Dallas would have went after Grubbs instead, they would have incurred an extra $1.3M in cap hits over 2012 and 2013. That's 600K/year for a Pro Bowl player and they decided on two guys who are struggling to even maintain their starting roles. That doesn't even include renegotiating anything (something I don't care for anyway), it's just as the contracts are written.
Grubbs got $36M with $7.2M as a base in the final year. Livings got $18.75M with a base of $4.75M in the final year. Bernie's contract is worth $11.5M. Subtract the final year base from Grubbs and Livings, giving $28.8M and $14M respectively. Add Bernie's 4 year deal to Livings reduced number, giving a total of $25.5M. For 4 years of service from Ben Grubbs, Dallas would have incurred $28.8M in cap charges. For 4 years of service (and it's unlikely they get that at all) for the other two, Dallas would incur $25.5M in cap charges. This is after all the dead money is spoken for when you cut those guys after the 4th season. We've only deducted that base so this is the difference when it's all said and done.
The difference between a Pro Bowl OG and two guys who struggle to remain starters and even make the roster a season later is $3.3M, or $825K per season. If they were serious, they don't go after 2 scrubs when they could have gotten a Pro Bowler for a pittance more. As far as I am concerned, they're doing nothing more than making the obvious move which won't really earn praise from me. I'm relieved but not encouraged because I'll need to see the team make a continuous effort moving forward and I'm almost certain that they'll bypass on the OL in favor of an unnecessary skill position when put to the test. They've been doing that for years on end and only when all the skill positions have been handsomely addressed have they been willing to throw a bone to the OL.
Has the team made some progress from their completely ignorant position 3 years ago? Sure. Some, I guess. I'm not sure how anyone could say that their philosophy has changed though because the need for OL was so blatantly apparent that you can't really say they weren't just making the obvious, sane move. I guess it's better than nothing but I'm not going to hand out ribbons for making the only logical choice after pigeonholing yourself for so long.
The Grubbs situation is just one reason why I don't think the team is really all that concerned with fixing the OL. You basically straight swap two guys who will likely be out of the league in 2-3 years for a guy who has been an elite player at his position for a few seasons and has many seasons ahead of him.
It's really kind of odd the way the team has chosen which aspects of the team to neglect over the past 6-7 years. They place such an emphasis on fielding multiple receiving threats but don't really think a complete secondary with competent safeties is all that important to stop the opposition who may be fielding an equally potent receiving corp. They've placed such an emphasis on rushing the passer, even renting a guy out at a ridiculous cap rate for 2 seasons but don't really think it's all that important to stop the opposition from beating the hell out of their QB.
So what we've seen is a team that has some very talented players at key positions but also had glaring weaknesses at certain positional groups. Unfortunately a weakness at safety will result in a lot of big plays given up and a weakness on the OL will allow your QB to suffer broken bones ever season. It's just quite odd, IMO.
