thebandit27

I wonder if they're keeping him on the roster to see if there's any way that they can tweak his contract. I would imagine, however, that there's no practical way to do that without getting in trouble for skirting the cap

I would include Alex Smith in the group of successes, which is quite the rarity considering he came from Urban's spread option scheme.

He did

Actually, prior to his extension, I was hoping that their plan after matching Groy's offer sheet last offseason was to have him start at center in 2018 and let Eric walk in free agency this offsesaon.

I don't know that it hurts as much as some might presume. Remember, Des-Groy-er is a 4-year vet, and has starting experience at center with this group.

And yet the same regime traded for Matthews, Gaines, and Benjamin, signed Hyde, Poyer, Tolbert, and Ducasse, and drafted Tre White, Zay Jones, and Dion Dawkins with their top 3 picks. Good call!

I don't agree with that guy, but I will say that I never liked the extension that they gave him. I felt it was a poor investment in an aging player whose best days were passed him. That said, I've always liked the kid and wish him well.

Indeed...about the most you can learn on the field this week is how well a guy is able to take instruction in practice and incorporate the coaching points into his practice routine. Everything else is just a confirmation of what you see on game tape, or--in some rare cases--a red flag that makes you go back to the tape to see if you can catch any additional tendencies.

What??? They signed largely "2nd tier" players last year in Hyde, Poyer, and Leonard Johnson, and they had one of the top secondaries in the NFL. Perhaps their approach of ignoring the over-valued FAs and prioritizing instead the under-valued guys is actually the prudent way to build through FA?

Wow, really? I'm 100% certain that nobody on this board knew that without you pointing it out. So are Legarrette Blount and Chris Long, both of whom used to play for NE...just in case you haven't been following the NFL for the last 8 months. Take your pompousness somewhere else. There are also a number of folks on here that are proficient in the English language, and its accompanying sentence structure and punctuation. Give it a shot.

Can you remember any plays in which the game came down to him making a play or not? Because that would be a prerequisite for him making a game-clinching big play

It was actually a larger foul than you're stating here, since the standard NFL player contract language allows the team to recoup bonus money in the event of a suspension; Whaley actually made it a point to include language that they couldn't recoup bonus money in the event of a drug-related suspension. If that's not enabling the dude, I don't know what is...

They didn't execute that game plan against the 2013-2014 team that had over 50 sacks, but rather against Rex's neutered pass rush. The issue is that you need to be good at all layers of the defense to beat Brady. Pass rush has to be able to get home reliably without blitzing (because only then can you blitz him effectively), and the back-7 needs to play disciplined in coverage. Jacksonville had the right game plan for him yesterday...until the 4th quarter. I said all week that the best defensive approach was to plan man coverage with Telvin Smith spying Brady, and that's what they did more often than not...until the 4th quarter, when they decided to go to a Cover-2 shell and back their corners off. Brutal.

Ironically, he made nearly the exact same play against NE on MNF in 2015

Good point. It does kind of create a conundrum though: re-sign your expensive young vet or continue to have to invest premium picks in your secondary? Tough call IMO.

Every single piece of analysis related to CB play flies in the face of your assessment, in case you were wondering. I don't know how to link to the previous board archives, otherwise I'd post the analysis again for those that refuse to believe it.

Gilmore's occasional lack of focus notwithstanding, he was easily a top-10 corner his entire career here. Once he got through his initial transition phase in NE, he played like a top-10 corner again. No one should be surprised

Did we really not know that both Gilmore and Dareus were great players? I think most folks did

And so I ask: does it matter, in this scenario, who plays on what side of the field?

Well, the only thing I can add here is that there are indeed RTs making more than $8M AAV. According to Spotrac, Lane Johnson is getting $11.25M and Ricky Wagner $9.5M. Also, there's some duality in that final thought: if you feel confident that Glenn won't heal, how can you expect to get a market-level return? Anyway, we're likely to just keep going round and round on this, so in the interest of not thread jacking any worse than I already have I'll bow out

I think pass rusher is easily the right path in round 1 (aside from QB obviously). The secondary is already solid (assuming Gaines/Johnson are retained or replaced in FA), so a makeover of the front 4 would put the D on the precipice of being special IMO.

I'm. Not. Looking. For. Cheaper. I have said repeatedly that I am more interested in having the best pair of tackles that I can have, because cap space is not a concern for this team. "We might be able to do almost as well for less money" isn't a good reason to get rid of Glenn for what's almost certain to be a below-market return. And although I've said that Hubbard would be a decent FA option (at guard; he's better suited inside IMO), he's not in Glenn's ballpark as a player. I think I've said my piece on this one. Enjoy the games today!

I think the world of Jeremiah; he has the experience of a scout and has been offered GM jobs I'm not huge on Payne, but Jackson at 22 would be a HUGE get. If Gaines isn't re-signed that would make a ton of sense.

Well, I do think Glenn is likely to recover, but let me summarize it this way: I think that the likelihood of Glenn recovering and being fine playing RT for LT money is far greater than the team getting good trade value for Glenn and subsequently finding his replacement in an inexpensive player. As for $60M, Spotrac currently says $30M, but that's assuming that the cap doesn't increase from 2017. It most certainly will, to a likely $175M+, so without any movement you're at $40M. Tyrod's release puts them at $50M, and I'm assuming guys like Ducasse and Hughes will be gone. So maybe $60M is a slight exaggeration, but only slight. Of course, if they part ways with either Richie or Mills, then they could actually have more than $60M in space with Glenn on the roster.

The problem is that you're talking about "coulds" and "maybes" that we have no guarantee of getting, versus Glenn, who is proven and a definite to be here if they want him. I find it surprisingly odd that you'd be willing to part with Glenn for a guy like Lucas--who has a total of 7 career starts. The whole discussion is especially strange to me given that the team will have nearly $60M in cap space--they don't need to get rid of Glenn.