Best moves we could make...

The bottom line is McCourty knows how good he is. Sometimes posts on this board make these guys out to be mentally handicapped or something. The advantage of inking the guy early is we save some money and the player gets some money now instead of later. It isn't rocket science. if McCourty doesn't get one bit better and hits FA at his current talent level he will still get a fat contract. We made the move early in Finny and it worked well. We should do the same with McCourty.

As far as Cook goes this is a guy who had 49 catches for 759 yards (15.5 YPC). We have people saying he is inconsistent? The guy hardly ever drops a catchable ball. He is ALREADY a big part of our offense (he was 2nd on the team in rec yards, 3rd in receptions) and he IS NOT a guy we want to lose. He is the most productive TE we have had in a long time. Are we supposed to wait until he has a 1000 yard season and then think he is going to sign for pennies? The guy was totally on fire the last three games of the season (103, 169 and 63 yd games). He had as good of a year as Jermichael Finley and he didn't have Aaron Rodgers throwing to him.

Cook doesn't have to catch 100 balls to be a real good TE for us. I'll take his 50 catches and 750 (15+ YPC) yards for the next 4-5 years and not regret inking the guy to a decent contract for one second. With Britt on the field Cook is that much more dangerous. Besides, our offense with Locker is going to be better than the sum of the parts. You put Cook, Britt, CJ, Washington and DWill/Hawkins out there together with a rocket arm mobile QB you cause the defense night mares. You don't just pluck 6'5, 250 pounds guys with 4.4 speed and a 40 inch vertical (not to mention darn good hands) in the draft every year. If anyone doesn't think Britt could have been a 1000 yd TE playing in NE or some other really high powered offense with a QB who threw for 5000 yards you are nuts.

 

I'm not against this idea of re-signing these guys before they become free agents, I'm just saying it's bad timing.

You don't need to sale me on McCourty, trust me, I know how good he is.

 

Lol, so many people were down on Cook this year, not to mention following the trade to draft him. Seems like the number of people increased over time, even.

But 3 years is the expectation by which a player will hit the level of becoming a significant contributor to the team to which he was drafted. Cook did exactly that this year. This one year alone pretty much puts him behind Wychek in terms of best TEs we've had her in TN. Kinney was solid for a time, so Cook needs to stay consistent to solidify that, but I'm pleased with his development.

People have to remember these guys aren't drafted NFL-ready in most cases. I know it's hard to wait years for players to pan out, but that's the reality.

The only hard part I can foresee is the Titans already set the bar with Craig Stevens' contract. It's going to be like paying two TEs around Scaife-rate, only sooner.

And as I've coined and posted before, this process is called "Finneganing" a player. Stop wasting the extra words and verb it already. License to use. You're welcome, lol.

 

I think you guys might be overlooking some of Cook's negatives. He can't block at all. I think the Titans ran a pass play like 98% of the time he was on the field (I forget the exact number but it is staggering), which is a huge negative when defenses realize it. The coaches still seem reluctant to put him out there in certain situations because I don't think they trust that he knows exactly what to do all the time.

He has shown a lot of flashes, but he is still very inconsistent. I like the idea of keeping him hungry for a new contract so that he continues to improve on the field and, more importantly, during the week.

 

At this very moment I'd rather we spend the money on one of these guys instead of extending Cook.

 

Cook makes Terry Bradshaw look smart.

 

Agree about Britt, but not about Cook. Cook and Stevens could secure the position for the next 2-3 years. Even if we bring in other TE's, its a position we won't have to spend on.

Now that Hawk is resigned we should work on re-signing the rest of our core and then draft O-Lineman and groom our next unit to our liking. There will always be talented runningbacks and if we can keep guys healthy we'd have a really good unit for Locker to grow with.

 

He's also recovering from a sometimes career ending injury. Signing now could possibly gaurantee him some money and give him some insurance against his injury history.

Just playing devil's advocate. I'd consider all offers if I was a player. It would seem that players who love the game and the franchise they're playing for would want some job security.

 

I do agree with the idea of re-signing our own that have produced. I'd like Finnegan to be re-signed. Problem is most of the players to really be excited about are already signed to longterm deals or were rookies last year.

I don't know about Cook. I just can't get behind the way we use him. To re-sign Cook now, he needs to be the #1 and play majority of snaps. If he is so awful and inept at blocking than he needs to be such a good WR that defenses gameplan to stop him. That or just move him to WR already! And it's strange since we re-signed Stevens, seems like we will plan to keep using Stevens so does it make sense to re-sign Cook on top of that?

 

The situation with Cook is weird. If he has another good season, we can't just let him go. We have been looking for a threat at TE for a long time now and it would be frustrating to see him go.

Now that he finally got over one of his hurdles, he needs to spend some time learning to block so he can be on the field at all times.

As much as I would like to sign some of these guys and keep them cheap, they have only produced one season. It was not long ago we thought McCourty was not much better than Mouton and Cook was a bust.