Clayton : Winners and Losers

[SMCowboy]

yeah because hours earlier we traded our TE for 1/2 of a 4th rounder, so we go and spend a 2nd to replace him. I guess you can put a positive spin on that by saying we filled a need.

Add to the fact that if Curtis is half the player we saw last pre-season than he is a great 2nd string and we could have gotten a third string TE in later rounds or even an undrafted free agent, like we usually do

It isn't spinning it. Fasano and Michael Bennett are night and day different as TE's.

Fasano is a blocking TE who has decent at BEST hands, and is no threat to do anything with the football but is only decent catching the basic TE patterns 8 to 10 yards up the field.

Bennett is a guy who is a dominate blocker who is also a real threat and can excel lined up in the slot and be a monster of a threat in the redzone because he has great jumping ability along with great hands.

 

[SMCowboy]

I'm mostly thinking of Turner-LT, Taylor-Peterson, Jones-Drew-Taylor.

None of them are really "specialty" backs IMO (Jones-Drew perhaps). They're all just talented backs that happen to be toting the rock with another talented guy. I think when you have two talented runners, they tend to naturally work well stylistically because they're both good. You mention Turner having speed, but he wasn't given $35 million by the Falcons for being fast. They feel he can be a No. 1 guy. (I doubt Felix Jones would ever be signed or drafted to be the front end of a running tandem, or to be the lone wolf.)

I think the same argument applies at receiver. I hate it when people say, 'Go draft a speedster.' Speed specialists fail all the time at that position. Give me two talented receivers, different styles or not, and I bet they do all right together.

Maybe I'm just drawing a blank, but how many top-notch running tandems have a Pro Bowl-caliber guy paired with a specialist? The McAllister-Bush duo comes to mind, but I don't know how top-notch that is -- especially on the Bush front.

McCallister-Bush was a great combination Bushes rookie year. The issue is Bush is NOT a good inside runner and Felix Jones definitely can run inside just fine.