NFL offseason thread

Two No. 1s is a steep price to pay for Flacco. He's a good QB, don't get me wrong. But he also benefits from being in a good system for him. He's not Tom Brady, Peyton Manning or Drew Brees. Put him in a different system and he might well turn into the next Matt Cassel. Big risk, unless you know how you are going to use him and if your system will fit his skill set.

Smith has been in the league long enough people know his pluses and minuses. He may not be a Pro Bowl QB, but he's serviceable and can win a lot of games in the right system. And he's got a few years of experience under his belt, which the rookies obviously don't have.

I don't see a franchise QB out there among the rookies. I know teams often reach for QBs too high in the draft (hello, Tim Tebow, Blaine Gabbert, etc.), but I might actually look at trading down if I have a high pick and am trying to fill multiple needs at other positions.

 

There's no way in this or any alternative universe Flacco doesn't re-up with the Ravens. No team can afford to have its Super Bowl MVP quarterback go free agent. It'd rip the team apart and alienate the fans for generations. Not to mention what team's going to pony up at least $60 million in guaranteed money AND two first round picks to get him? Why is this scenario under discussion?

 

The only team that he makes sense for: Minnesota

 

It's out there because Peter King was fed the BS from Flacco's agent.

 

I had a boss once tell me during an ongoing contract story that "just because what somebody tells you is not true and will never happen doesn't mean it isn't a story." I knew he was right, but as a reader, I reserve the right to use Occam's razor and ignore obvious bullshit.

 

http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/blog/nfl-rapidreports/21693018/report-steelers-james-harrison-refuses-to-take-pay-cut

Now it really is looking like James Harrison will be cut by the Steelers. They were clearly trying to keep him, but I doubt that happens if he doesn't take a pay cut as part of the restructuring of his contract.

Looks like at least one suggestion was that he ends up in Cleveland, which would be interesting. Harrison is still the Steelers' best outside linebacker and he played pretty well as he got healthy later last season, but he may not even be the most painful cap casualty if they let Max Starks go.

 

It's a little more than that, although I agree that that's the bulk of it... Newsome's vague answer about keeping Flacco plays into this a bit as well...

I'm guessing it's just posturing from both sides and that he'll be there next season...

 

Flacco will look overpaid great in Silver and Black.

 

He may have been the only person in the NFL stupid enough to think having two of the easiest interceptions in Super Bowl history land in his lap made Larry Brown a good player.

 

Indeed, my former co-champion potato peeler on our frequent KP duties.

It's so weird when OOP's football posts lack both knowledge and nuance. Usually he comes off as so informed and analytical about the sport.

Dr. Z once wrote that while other believe team building starts on the lines, Al Davis liked to start with corners.

Brown's Super Bowl heroics were unexpected, but he was a solid starter for a very good Cowboys team. Al Davis also plucked Russell Maryland from them, so desperate was he to grab some kind of "winning attitude" for a group of Raiders who lost a lot of close games. At the time, Oakland was coming off an 8-8 season that had been 8-2 before Hostetler went down. 1996 season fell apart behind some bad kicking.

Point being, Brown wasn't a smart acquisition based on the type of defense the Raiders favored. But Al Davis was desperate to put a good solid Raiders team over the top. Then they overpaid Desmond Howard the following year for a lot of the same reasons.

 

And there goes Norrin expressing his butthurt any time anybody dares say anything negative about his Raiders.

Prattling on about Davis believing in building around cornerbacks doesn't change the fact that he overpaid badly for that particular cornerback. It was still lousy judgement on his part to overpay for a mediocre cornerback simply because Neil O'Donnell handed Brown the Super Bowl MVP award.

Davis was a hell of a football mind at one point, but Brown was one of many of his big misses, which became more and more frequent long before his passing. My apologies for not writing a full dissertation on the subject just for you, Norrin.

Judging a cornerback solely on interceptions is almost as stupid as judging a quarterback solely on wins. No wonder Fart boy thinks it is a good idea.

 

Davis didn't understand that there was a reason the Steelers were throwing in Brown's direction in the first place.