KINGBRICE_28 said:
3-4 guys just restructured so we're fine.....
No, you're not... not if the Skins are serious about trading Laveraneus Coles, anyway... he's willing to give up the 5 million dollar signing bonus due in April if they CUT him, but not if they TRADE him...
Without giving back that bonus, trading Coles would cost the Skins in excess of a 9 million cap hit... that's why they're back in serious negotiations with Chris Samuels (negotiations that were dead in the water a few days ago), so that he can free up enough cap room that the Skins can go ahead and trade Coles...
The hot rumor du jour is Coles going back to the Jets in a straight up trade for Santana Moss... such a trade would wipe out the cap room the Skins have created with the recent contract renegotiations AND the cap room they'd gain by renegotiating Samuels' deal...
That leaves the Skins with next to nothing left to pursue other teams' free agents, and they still have like 18 of their own free agents to re-sign... FWIW, most of my info on this subject comes from the Washington Post, not some Dallas-area paper...
Out with gardner in with mason.....
Out with Gardner and Coles, in with Santana Moss and maybe a 3rd round draft pick... I call that a net loss for the receiving corps, in fact a rather large net loss...
As for Mason, you're dreaming... he's a fair bet to wind up in the NFC East next season, but it'll more likely be with the Cowboys or (gulp), the Iggles... good luck trying to bid on any free agent head to head against either of those two teams, when you're tight up against the cap and they have some 15-20 million to spend...
Nope, if Coles and Gardner do indeed both leave, bet the family ranch that they draft either Mike Williams or Braylon Edwards in the first round... if both are still on the board, they'll probably go with Williams, word is they like him a lot...
It was just a week or two ago that Gibbs clearly said the Skins would not be pursuing any high-dollar free agent wide receivers on a radio call-in show in DC... Mason definitely qualifies as a high-dollar free agent...
Out with Smoot in with....umm.....who's that rookie cb...rolle?
Lots of good corners in this draft, but there's very little chance the Skins will draft one in the first round, and Antrel Rolle will be long gone by the middle of the first round...
Out with coles and Jacobs and Thrash will have more playing time. I like jacobs.
Yeah, Jacobs will HAVE to step up... but Thrash is, always has been and always will be a spare...
Pierce won't leave....I hope......he seems like a joe gibbs type player.....
Hey, I understand why you hope that, I actually hope the Boys make a play for Pierce too... but money talks in the NFL, and as I said, the Skins have some problems with the cap this year... Antonio might well be one of the free agents forced to look elsewhere...
Danny boy has the cap thing figured out......
You're way too knowledgeable a football fan to believe that bit of homeristic propaganda, pal... many, many mediots have noted that the Skins have cap "hell" waiting for them next year, but to me it seems clear by the moves of the last week or so that they've already entered cap "heck"... you guys had to renegotiate a slew of deals to get even a little under the cap, now Coles has the Skins by the short hairs, and is threatening to remove what little cap room they created... so either you let Coles go with no return, thereby saving a little room under the cap to pursue a few second tier free agents, or you trade him and wipe out all of your cap room, necessitating another round of cuts or renegotiations (and I have a hunch that there aren't that many players left who CAN have their deals reworked)...
And of course, renegotiating contracts just pushes the day of reckoning a little further in the future... this is Danny Boy's favorite ploy, but it's not an open-ended tactic, sooner of later the bill will come do... when that happens, the Skins will have little choice but to blow it all up and start from scratch, a la the 49ers the last 2 years...
Not to be insulting to you personally, but I find it freaking HILARIOUS that Skins fans are convinced that Danny Boy is some football genius who has the cap thing all figured out... even though the Cowboys and Niners have both gone down the same road, and finally faced their day of reckoning... the notion that Danny Boy can do what their decision makers couldn't is quite laughable; if he's that much better than them, how come they have Lombardi Trophies and he doesn't??
Besides we didn't draft ( 2 ) LT's last season because we thought samuels was GOING to restructure. He's too inconsistent though. He shuts out the probowlers and allows 3 sacks from bums......
I don't disagree with that thinking, but apparently the Skins are quite eager to keep him around... for that kind of money, I think I'd cut him loose, he ain't bad, but he ain't elite, and he's making elite money right now...
Besides, I saw nothing from the two tackles y'all drafted last year to suggest they have anything approaching Samuels' talent...
As for the defensive ranking......I think you need to download some of zebs clips my friend because we were HORRIBLE 2 years back( 28th? ) and were projected to get worse last season. Williams doesn't need stars he needs men to play a role. He schemes while pretty basic on film, work. And you can't find a pattern because their are millions of combonations between the plays and formations.
Williams did a brilliant job with the Skins last year... one wonders if he'll be as effective minus Pierce and Smoot... Pierce won't hurt that bad, Arrington would compensate for his loss (if he does ultimately leave), but losing Smoot will hurt you...