2014 FA list

He did better than the 120 million dollar man there. Way better.

And as I said, they aren't guys that I'm looking at to be our starter, just guys that can replace Fitz and create more competition. Can probably get them for little over a million.

 

I'd say that is more of a testament to how bad Cutler is than how McCown is good.

 

Also, whatsup with all these badass d-ends???? I never noticed how many good ones were hitting the market. Hardy, Spencer, Tuck, Allen, Bennett. Heck even Orakpo could make the transition.

And oh yeah, I forgot about Michael Johnson(another guy I wanted that the Bengals drafted late!!!! how many is that now? Burfict, Johnson, Dunlap, Shawn Williams...their gm knows talent, well besides for QB's lol!!!!)

Just gimme one of em....please.

 

IF we release CJ2K

 

I'm on the MJD bandwagon for sure man. Either him or Tate. Seeing that Tate will get overpaid, I'm thinking MJD may be the way to go...we can then draft a rb in the 4th or 5th to learn from the master.

 

Also, a lot of good MLB fa's and DT free agents, but I will have to get to those later.

 

RB
It doesn't make much sense to cut CJ and sign MJD. MJD will certainly run harder then CJ, but MJD is starting to get dinged and that's not something we want to pair with our fragile QB. But more importantly, that's investing a huge amount of money in one position. Better to consider Greene the starter and draft someone to compete for the job...somewhere in the 2nd-4th round.

QB
Schaub may follow Kubiak if Kubiak is signed as an OC. Schaub is coming off a poor season but it concerns me he may be a worse QB then we think because all of his success has been with Kubiak and a rather QB friendly system where a lot of their plays are off playaction. I'd rather have the system then Schaub. Plus, Schaub will probably make at least as much as Fitz and he'd probably prefer to go somewhere where he can compete for a job. Cutting Fitz for a guy who played well in 5 games is a Matt Flynn like move. If he goes back to playing like he did before this year and we need him, we'll be throwing away the season. With a better offensive system, or a better running game, or a few less turnovers by Fitz, or a better defense, we would have been in the playoffs. We don't NEED to change all of these things (even if we want to). I think depending on the staff, you could see us go with what we have at QB this year with Locker, Fitz and Wilson (who they'd hope would develop this year to at least the backup for 2015 or better). Course, that depends on the new coaching staff and what they are going to run.

DE
If we stay in a 4-3, I'd go with Hardy. Yes he will be expensive, but he's probably worth it. While he played in 15 games in 2012, he had 11 sacks in 10 starts. In 2013, he had 15 sacks in 13 starts. He's also huge. 6'4 and 290lbs? He's a BEAST! If we wanna keep that line big and have a BIG pass rusher, he's the guy. He's getting better and still 2 years away from his prime! If we go to a 3-4, Orakpo is probably the guy. Alternates would be Jared Allen if we can get him relatively cheaper but he's probably a few year fix. A 3-4 alternative would be Lamar Woodley who I'm expecting may be cut by the Steelers.

TE
Would like a better blocking TE then Stevens. Either that or plan on a 2 TE offense like the Pats had with Gronk and Hernandez. While Stevens is supposed to be our best run blocking TE, many times he got blown up by LB's. Again, depends on who the staff is and what offense they bring. Alternatively, Ebron is a BEAST and would be available in round 1.

FB
West Coast FB's always have better 'stats.' I'd prefer a knock out run blocking FB like a Lorenzo Neal in his prime.

OT
While this draft is pretty deep in the first 2 rounds, if I could look up a good young one in FA while still getting my pass rusher, it's a definite consideration.

Again, a lot of this depends on who the HC is and what systems he and his coordinators are bringing in.

 

Joique Bell and Kuhn sign me up!

Bell can catch out of the backfield and will get a chance to start here. FB are a dieing breed but why not have a top-3 FB who can do more than just block and also help with the goaline carries.

The Backfield position would upgrade drastically IMO.

Wishful thinking though ..

 

Gut

You might be right about RB, but if we could get MJD cheap(which is very possible) I'm still all for it. Yeah, he had to deal with a nagging foot injury, but that man looked like the old MJD once it was healed up. Chris Johnson for 8 mil or MJD for 4ish(guessing)? is that a question?

Also, why haven't we cut Stevens yet? I notice people talking about upgrading the TE position, but we have like 3.4 mil invested in stevens and 3 mil invested in Delanie for next season. We also still have Taylor Thompson who is getting better every year and continues to block well. We clearly need to cut Stevens because he's just not worth the money anymore, but until we do that I don't see why we're talking about adding more money to that position.

As for the OT situation. There are plenty of RT's laying out there in free agency that would be HUGE upgrades over David Stewart. I personally like Oher the most. I wouldn't doubt if he gave a hometown discount to us either. Zach Strief, Eric Winston, Roger Saffold, Byron Bell, Breno Giacomini, Austin Howard are all guys that could come in for a decent deal and offer us so much more than Stewart has the past couple of seasons. I mean, again, this is another situation where we can cut Stewart(6 mil) and sign one of these guys for 3-4ish...saving money, getting better. no brainer right? I hope so. This is the reason I could see us not going tackle in the draft though. So many good right tackles in free agency that won't require that much salary.

 

This offseason, I'd love for us to shell out some moula on a serious DE. Hardy, Johnson, or Bennett - and if we can't land any of those, than yes, Allen as more a stopgap who can help us for a couple years.

We have in my opinion quite a bit of needs though (assuming we re-sign Vern, RP, Pollard, and cut CJ, KW, Stewy): DE, RB, ROLB, MLB, RT...

Ideally I'd love DE addressed in FA with a solid pickup, so we can go QB in the first. I'd also love to pick up a solid RT in FA b/c we already have a good amount of youth on the line. That would allow us to BPA in the 2nd (with hopefully some LBs falling). 4th we go RB.

C'mon Rus, make it happen!